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COKRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVAETS 



COPYRIGHT 1912 

BY CHARLES FRANCIS STOCKING 

PUBLISHED AUGUST 1912 



All Rights Reserved 



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gd.A3209l7 



DEDICATION 

To the one whose unfathomable love has 
made this book possible — my Mother 



Truth is within ourselves . . . 
There is an inmost center in us all. 
Where Truth abides in fulness; and to know 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to he without. 

— Robert Browning. 



MAY 8TH 



MAY 8TH 




ALIFORNIA — and May! The 

warm earth quivers with expect- 
ancy, and the air is full of the 
promise of new life. The soft 
winds that blow from the inland 
are driving the rain clouds back 
to the ocean, and whispering to the barren hill- 
sides and brown valleys a message of roses, of 
flaming poppy fields and summer's bounty. I hear 
the meadow lark's sweet call, a pean of sheer 
gladness for life. I hear the twitter of swallows, 
and catch the gleam of the tanager as it flashes 
past me, too occupied with its renewed responsi- 
bilities to be mindful of my presence. Far down 
in the valley below me, the cattle, just turned 
into the new grass, are rejoicing in the abundance 
that is spread before them. I love to watch the 
cloud-shadows glide along this 4 great valley and 
melt into the hills far beyond. I love to sit here 
at sunset and see the wonderful changes of color 
that tint the landscape when the glowing sun tips 
those di§lant hills. I love to linger here when it 
has sunk behind the mountains, with night falling 
around me, and watch the Stars come out and the 
lights appear in the farm houses far below. Be- 
yond those sentinel hills lies the bay, with its 
Golden Gate opening out into the great ocean. I 
,caught a glimpse of this when they brought me 
here, and my heart was filled with longing to sail 
out through that sunlit portal and into the vast 
unknown- — on and on, until I should come to that 
other gateway through which I shall soon pass. 

9 



THE DIARY OF 

Why did I have to wait? Why was I brought 
here to linger in an agony of longing for life, 
while everything about me rejoices in the glad- 
ness of springtime? As I write I hear the sad 
call of a turtledove from the ledge below, and my 
forlorn hope responds to its mournful notes. It 
is not the fear of death that weighs upon me, but 
the thought of the injustice of it all — I am so 
young, and poverty and sickness have given me 
so little chance. It is so hard to give up all that 
the years might have brought me of happiness 
and love — so hard to know that my Struggle has 
been vain, my hopes empty. 

I tried to read my Bible this morning, but I 
get so little from it that I have laid it aside. 
When I opened it and read Jesus 's words: "I 
am come that they might have life, and that they 
might have it more abundantly," such a feeling 
of resentment came over me that I was afraid. 
Sometimes I wonder if Jesus really did live. 
Sometimes I think he must have lived, but that 
he, too, was mistaken — deceived just as we poor 
mortals are — whipped through a few short years 
by misfortune and calamity, and cheated in the 
end by false hopes and empty promises. The 
Bible is such a Strange book ! No one understands 
it, and leaSt of all, I think, the preachers. The 
minister from the little church in the village has 
been to see me. When I told him that I had been 
brought here to die, he asked if he might pray for 
me. And then he prayed to God to spare my life, 
if it be His will ; but if not, to grant me peace and 

10 



JEAN EVARTS 

fortitude to meet the end, and at laSt life eternal. 
It seemed a mockery ! MuSt we die that we may 
live ? Are we so imperfect that God muSt operate 
through suffering and death to make us whole? 
And if we are imperfect, who made us so ? If God 
did not, is there another power that can mar His 
creation? And is God, then, omnipotent? There 
is no answer given us but the less than schoolboy 
logic of the preachers; and my weary thought 
long since ceased its efforts to accept this. 

In these laSt days the world about me has 
echoed the voices that I hear so constantly within. 
Sometimes they whisper patience, and bid me 
hope that the Storms which have beaten down my 
soul in this experience called life shall rage in 
vain againSt that portal through which I go. 
Sometimes they ring through my soul with the 
wild clamor of huge bells, and Stir my confused 
thought into fierce protects againSt the laws that 
foreordained me to misery and death. Again, 
they sink into whispered temptations to deStroy 
my life, and end at once the confusion and pain. 
But I dare not do this — weakness has sapped my 
courage — and I could not know that in killing the 
body I had destroyed the Self. 

How the awful thoughts of Self beat upon my 
tortured soul when the Storms of temptation are 
raging! This Self that I have found here, caSt 
into the world without my knowledge or consent, 
emerging from utter darkness, only to sink again 
into darkness juSt as profound and mySterious! 
This Self that in its brief passage between the 

11 



THE DIARY OF 

two dark mySteries carries the weight of ages of 
faith and prayer, a crushing burden of countless 
longings and fears — bearing the executioner's 
awful sentence, yet Striving to illumine the Stony 
pathway along which it journeys to the end with 
the feeble light of a hope that it muSt have 
brought from the darkness without. 

And these Storms are followed by hours of 
deepest gloom, of mental exhaustion and despair. 
At such times I lament bitterly the slavery of my 
Struggle for existence that gave me no oppor- 
tunity for Study and meditation, for perchance I 
might have found that which now would help me 
bear the limitations of life and reconcile me to its 
end. But I have known only work — work that 
mounted to desperation, that crowded my life 
with cares and worries — work that had no end 
beyond the procurement of the bare necessities of 
a futile existence. Often at the close of a Sunday 
of feverish preparation for the cares of the com- 
ing week I have crept into the reStful calm of a 
church, and there, in the atmosphere of humble 
devotion, apart from the turmoil of every-day 
living, have prayed that I might learn something 
of the great Spirit that the preachers tell us 
Stands back of all life. There I would hear much 
about the goodness of God, and the need of shap- 
ing my course to the Infinite; but, alas! no one 
seemed to know juSt how this could be done, and 
no one could tell me. I would come away in 
greater confusion, convinced that the end of all 
philosophy is that we can know nothing. Wise 

12 



JEAN EVARTS 

men may continue to argue and dispute, as they 
have since the dawn of reason; but the children 
of this world Still suffer and they Still die. The 
heavens are of brass, and the ear of Omnipotence 
is Stone! 

And I am waiting — waiting. While the warm 
sunlight kisses the hilltops and flows out into the 
budding valley beneath, while the birds carol 
forth their joy, and the cool winds leave the em- 
brace of the snow-clad peaks and hurry out to sea, 
touching the sleeping foliage as they pass and 
bidding it come forth, I am waiting. And yet — 
though I know the words are vain — my torn soul 
pours out its agony in a prayer that I cannot 
check as it Struggles to my lips in this dark hour 
— Heavenly Father, if such there be, and if 
Thou doSt see and hear the children of men, whose 
hearts are burSting with an unutterable longing 
to know Thee, look upon me, and if Thine arm be 
not shortened, Stretch it forth and let me live, O 
God, let me live ! 



13 



MAY 10TH 




MAY 10TH 

OW the charm of this glorious 
springtime grips me, body and 
soul, despite my sufferings! To- 
day I saw the sun rise. From my 
ledge of rock I watched the dull 
sky take on its parti-colored morn- 
ing robes, gray, purple, pink, and then a dazzling 
white, as the sun itself, heralded by long arms of 
light that pierced an opening for it through the 
pearly clouds, Stood forth boldly upon the glitter- 
ing peaks and seemed to bid the darkness flee be- 
fore it. Whose mandate did the sun obey? Who 
framed the law by which the clouds parted and 
the darkness fled? Is there an intelligence, not 
yet understood by men, that manifests itself 
through Nature and through us — or is it chance? 
And can a power expressed through such imper- 
fect agencies be itself more perfe6t than they? 
No, there is no other conclusion admissible. 

The hunting season has opened, and the sound 
of shooting is heard from all directions. I pity 
the poor quail, such innocent, pretty things — and 
yet, their lot is far less desolate than that of man, 
duped by promises always held before him, but 
never fulfilled. 

I have disobeyed the do6tor by coming out 
here today, but I feel now that I shall make but 
few visits to this beautiful spot, for the warning 
that came yesterday bids me remember that my 
time here is short. It was a hemorrhage, and I 
cannot but think it the beginning of the end. I 
had been watching the hunters in the valley below, 

17 



THE DIARY OF 

and as I leaned over the ledge I caught sight of a 
man coming along the path that leads to this 
place. I muSt have made a noise that attracted 
him, for he looked up, and when he saw me he 
smiled and touched his cap. Then I felt the blood 
rush into my throat — the valley seemed to rise up 
before me — I grew faint and sank to the ground. 

When I opened my eyes again I was lying on 
the grass some distance back of the ledge, my head 
supported in the man's arms, and his handker- 
chief pressed to my lips. As my thought cleared, 
my first feeling was one of anger that I was Still 
living ; my next was one of wonder, as I saw him 
smile at me again. But men who find pleasure in 
shooting harmless quail may be expe6ted to smile 
in the presence of death. Yet — as I think back 
today and try to recall the circumstances — was he 
hunting? — for I am sure he did not carry a gun. 

But I was too weak to talk ; and when he asked 
me if I thought I could be taken home, I only 
nodded and sank back again in his arms, as he 
lifted me and Started down the pathway to the 
house. How easily he carried me, and how gentle 
he was! The rancher's wife was diStra6ted when 
she saw my condition, and sent her boy off poSt- 
haSte for the village do6tor. All was hurry and 
confusion, and I did not see the Stranger again 
after he laid me on the couch in the dingy little 
parlor. 

And now as I think of him, some vague mem- 
ory seems to Stir my thought, some inward inStin6t 
tells me that he is not a Stranger, that I know him 

18 



JEAN EVARTS 

— perhaps well — as well as one knows the glitter 
of the sunbeams or the flush of the sky at dawn — 
yet where have I seen him before? 

But while my thought puzzles with these ques- 
tions, there flows over my soul a wave of despair, 
a chilling sense of utter desolation, and I see once 
more the battlefield of life Stretched out before 
me, where good and evil are grappling in eternal 
warfare for the souls of men. Why should I care 
to live ! What sane reason have I for clinging to 
a life that muSt end in extinction ! It is ordained 
that there shall be perpetual combat between man 
and Nature — that all living forms, from the tini- 
est inse6t to man himself, shall forever slay one 
another ! The spirit of Strife is in our souls — the 
luSt of blood poisons the sources of life — it per- 
meates the deeds of men — it manifests in the 
germs that contend for the maStery of their 
bodies ! The universe has been created to be de- 
stroyed, and darkness awaits mankind ! 

I have been warned — and now I am Striving to 
keep my thoughts from the dread anticipation of 
the next attack — thoughts that weigh like a mill- 
Stone upon my soul. But I shall try to come out 
to this ledge every day, for when the final sum- 
mons comes I hope to meet it here, with my face 
turned toward the Golden Gate that opens into 
the ocean of myStery, and my thought fixed upon 
the wonders of the scene before me, the hills and 
the valley, the distant peaks, and the glow of the 
sunset sky. And I am ready — let it come quickly. 



19 



MAY 11TH 



MAY 11TH 




HIS morning the Stranger came 
again. I was sitting on the ledge, 
watching the miSts melt away over 
the valley in the morning sun. The 
day was a-glitter, and a thousand 
voices filled the air with sounds of 
gladness. I heard him coming along the path be- 
hind me, but before I could rise and tell him how 
grateful I was for his kindness to me when I was 
so much in need of help, he was at my side and, 
with his hand on my shoulder, was telling me to 
remain seated. 

Then he sat down beside me and began to talk 
about the glorious view from the ledge. He spoke 
of the wealth of beauty that was spread out so 
lavishly upon the landscape before us, and won- 
dered what mu£t be the real beauty, of which this 
was but an imperfe<5t manifestation. I asked him 
if this was not real beauty that we were enjoying, 
and he replied that it was only our concept, and 
not the reality. When I asked him what he meant 
by the reality, he said, God. 

I laughed at this, and asked him if he knew 
anything about God, for if he did he might be of 
great service to us poor mortals who were hunger- 
ing for such information. To my surprise he took 
this remark seriously, and replied that he did 
know something about Him, and that he was daily 
adding to this knowledge. 

Then, I know not why, I asked him if his God 
could cure me of tuberculosis. With a perfectly 
serious face he replied that He could. For some 



THE DIARY OF 

moments I sat looking at him, wondering if he 
really meant it. Then a smile lighted up his face, 
and putting his hand on my arm he said gently, 
"The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath 
are the everlasting arms, and He shall thruSt out 
the enemy from before thee; and shall say, De- 
stroy them." 

A sharp reply sprang to my lips, for in my 
hopeless condition trite scriptural quotations irri- 
tate me beyond endurance. But he was looking 
out over the valley, loSt in thought and apparently 
unmindful of me. And on his face there was an 
expression of such peace, such Strength and sin- 
cerity, that the angry thought died within me, and 
with Streaming eyes, scarce knowing what I did, I 
held out my arms to him in agonized appeal and 
cried, "0 help me, for I am dying !" 

The day is darkening into night, and the round 
white moon that peers into my open window is 
dropping its silvery beams in myotic dance upon 
the glistening hills. In the weStern sky a few long 
bars of glowing red Still linger as memories of the 
departed sun, and symbolize the feeble rays of 
hope that yet glow within my somber thought 

Whether I live or whether, as I now believe, 
the lengthening shadows that trail the setting sun 
of life will soon enfold me, I shall carry with me 
to the end the memory of his compassionate look 
— a look of such tenderness, such love and pity, as 
I have never before seen impressed upon the face 
of any human being. I cannot recall his words, 
though he talked to me long and earnestly, for the 

24 



JEAN EVARTS 

emotion that shook my soul had seemed to dull 
my hearing. But as he led me back to the house I 
felt in his presence the deep sympathy, the sincere 
desire to help me, that my hungry heart had 
yearned for, and I knew that I had found a friend. 



25 



MAY 12TH 




MAY 12TH 

RENEWED hope and an unfam- 
iliar sense of expectancy filled my 
thought as I sat on the ledge this 
morning, drinking in the glories of 
the unfolding day, while hour by 
hour the mounting sun revealed 
new charms and fresh beauty. Yesterday, in the 
stress of my deep emotion, I had asked a Stranger 
to help me ; today my thought of him was that of a 
friend. And I could not curb a longing that he 
would come again, and coming, would bring me a 
message of cheer. Surely, I thought, such serenity 
and assurance as his, even in the presence of 
death, muSt reSt on convi6tion, not mere opinion; 
and the lively hope that he has aroused within me 
muSt be the harbinger of something better that is 
close at hand. 

Then he came — and it seemed that the sun 
grew brighter and the birds sang more joyously 
as he sat down beside me. "Be of good cheer," 
he said, "I bring you tidings of great joy." 

How often I had heard these same words, and 
they had been as sounding brass to my ears ! But 
when they came from his lips, and I saw again 
that tender smile lighting up his face, my heart 
leaped with a happiness I have not known since 
childhood, and the sense of hopelessness that op- 
pressed my soul seemed about to lift and reveal 
hidden joys that I had not dared to dream were 
ever meant for me. 

Then I told him of my need ; of my Struggle as 
a poor Stenographer in the business world ; of my 

29 



THE DXABY OF 

parents' death; and of my unhappy strife with 
poverty and sickness, until I had sunk beneath 
the burden of ills and had been sent here, through 
the loving efforts of an older sifter, in the vain 
hope that the sunshine and pure mountain air 
might restore me. It was only the old, old Story 
of God's mistake in the plan of creation — the same 
miserable recital of loSt faith, lo§t hope, utter 
helplessness, and, finally, drifting, drifting — no 
one knows whither — without chart, without com- 
pass — tossing upon the angry waves of misfor- 
tune that were mounting higher and higher, until 
they seemed to break against the lowering, clouds 
above ! 

"You say there is a God!" I cried. "But did 
He create mankind? And if so, why does He pun- 
ish us for being as He made us? There is some 
terrible mistake — or there is no God ! ' ' 

Patiently he heard me through. Then, in a 
voice whose low intensity seemed to bid the winds 
and waves be calm, he told me that he had a mes- 
sage for me that he knew would meet my need. He 
told me that, if I were willing, he would come and 
unfold this message to me day by day, and that he 
would work with me and for me to overcome the 
unhappy condition into which I had fallen. 

I know I did not catch the meaning of his 
words; but while he spoke my waiting heart 
thrilled with joy, and when he had finished I held 
out my hand to him in gratitude. And tonight, as 
I sit in the quiet of my little upper room, with 
only the friendly chirp of the crickets or the occa- 

30 



JEAN EVARTS 

sional hoarse call of a curious owl for company — 
when all Nature is so quiet, so still, that it seems 
as if a gentle hand had been laid upon her, hush- 
ing her into silence — I am pondering his words, 
thankful that my training in the busy office in 
my little home town has enabled me to take down 
clearly and in sequence all that he shall tell me, 
that I may read and re-read it when I am alone. 
Tomorrow night I shall begin to write his message 
in this diary — this diary that I began only a few 
short days ago, thinking that to write it would 
help me bear the suspense of waiting for the 
dreaded call, and keep my thought occupied until 
it should come. 

I have felt so Strong since yesterday, and 
death has not seemed so near. Tonight my spirit 
seems to float on wings. Is it, I wonder, only the 
Stimulus of renewed hope ? Or do I dare to think 
that the darkness is passing? Can it be — can it 
be that my cry has been heard — that God lives, 
and that He has come in the presence of this new 
friend ! Can it be that I shall see Thy salvation, 
and shall yet live to praise Thy name ! 



31 



MAY 13TH 



MAY 13TH 




WAS waiting for him when he 
came this morning, my heart beat- 
ing high in anticipation of the 
" glad tidings" he had said he 
would bring me. A new day seemed 
to have dawned, and the dark 
clouds behind which I had believed the gateway 
of death awaited me appeared to my Stimulated 
vision to be rolling away and revealing a bright- 
ness beyond that filled me with gladness and 
gratitude. 

" Shall I be cured?" I urged, when we were 
seated. ' l Tell me quickly, what have you brought 
me?" 

His answer was given in a single word, ' ' God. ' ' 
Instantly a sense of disappointment blotted 
out the bright pi6ture before me, as my thought 
rose in rebellion again&t what I feared was to be 
only a restatement of the old theology that I had 
ca&t aside years ago. 

i ' I think I know what you would say, ' ' he went 
on hurriedly, as if he wished to prevent me from 
replying. "I know that you have sought Him, 
and apparently in vain; I know that you have 
prayed, and your prayers have seemed to return 
to you unanswered. You have Striven to do your 
part, and He has seemed to be unable or unwilling 
to help you. But your experience is the common 
lot of humanity. I, too, have passed through it, 
and passing, have been led into the knowledge of 
God as not only existing and real, but as the only 
reality, and as the 'very present help' which can 

35 



THE DIABY OF 

lift you out of despair, up into a realization of 
those things which 'eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of 
man.' If you will put aside prejudice and human 
opinion, and will patiently follow me, Striving for 
that receptivity of mind which a little child holds 
toward its teacher, the message will be unfolded 
to you, and I know your needs will be met. ' ' 

Humbly I turned to him. "Tell me of your 
God, ' ' I said ; " I am waiting. ' ' 

Then, with his thought apparently far away 
from either himself or me, he began. 



The message begins and ends with God. We 
do not know what untold ages have passed since 
man, looking off into the depths of the Starlit 
heavens, firSt formulated within his thought the 
question, "Who made this?" But we do know 
that no more momentous question has ever been 
asked, for once propounded, that agonizing search 
for a Creator was begun that has shaped the men- 
tal development of humanity. As have been man's 
beliefs in the existence or non-exi§tence of God, 
as have been his concepts of God's nature and 
attributes, so have been his manifestations of hap- 
piness or sorrow, peace or Strife, progress or 
retrogression. 

As far back as the dawn of history there were 
great souls who had caught the truth of the vaSt- 
ness of the universe, and who sang praises to the 

36 



JEAN EVARTS 

One who had conceived a Creation that was in- 
finite in extent. Today the infinitude of the uni- 
verse is acknowledged by all thinking men. Send 
our thought in whatever direction we will, it re- 
turns to us again and reports no limits. The 
human mind Staggers at its own concept of the 
profound depths of space. To comprehend the 
distances that separate our planet from the re- 
motest Stars visible through the Strongest lenses 
is a task wholly beyond the capacity of men's 
minds. Limits to the universe are unthinkable; 
and that which is unlimited muSt be infinite in 
extent. 

Reasoning from effect to cause, as the human 
mind invariably does in its attempts to establish, 
through logical processes, the existence of a sole 
creative power behind material phenomena, it 
may be said that a thing created implies a creator. 
An effe6t is unthinkable without a cause, for these 
are correlated terms, and do not admit of dis- 
association. An infinite effe<5t implies an infinite 
cause, and, therefore, that which called the uni- 
verse into being muSt have been infinite. More- 
over, the maintenance of an infinite universe calls 
for the continued existence of its infinite cause. 

Another fa6t that is apparent in a contempla- 
tion of the universe is that it exiSts in accordance 
with laws, certain of which seem to be more or 
less understood by men. But the laws by which 
an infinite universe is maintained muSt themselves 
be infinite; and the power that is able to frame 
infinite laws, and that can maintain the universe 

37 



THE DIAEY OF 

through those laws, cannot be less than infinite 
itself. 

A power which can create an infinite universe, 
governed by infinite laws, mu§t be omnipotent; 
and that which has ever at any time been omnipo- 
tent can never cease to be so. It can never con- 
tain any elements of discord or decay, for to the 
extent that it did it would cease to be omnipotent. 
It can not admit the existence of any other power, 
for the same reason. The power, therefore, that 
framed the universe and that continues to main- 
tain it, mu&t be infinite, omnipotent, and perfect, 
and there can be only one such power. 

Whether we admit that the universe shows de- 
sign or not, the existence of intelligence mu§t be 
conceded, for it is manifested on the human plane, 
and is demanded by the admission that the uni- 
verse is maintained by law. No unintelligent 
power could have created a universe, even an im- 
perfect universe; and if we admit that an om- 
nipotent creator is intelligent at all, we are forced 
to the conclusion that the creator's intelligence is 
likewise infinite, that is, without limits, embracing 
all knowledge. 

But intelligence is a mental quality, and in- 
finite intelligence requires an infinite mentality 
as its habitat. Moreover, laws are mental things, 
and are framed in mind. If, therefore, the creator 
of this infinite universe possesses infinite intelli- 
gence, we are driven to the conclusion that the 
creator mu&t be an infinite mentality — in other 
words, an infinite mind. 

38 



JEAN EVAETS 

Following out these implications, and knowing 
that on the human plane the activities of mind are 
manifested in thoughts and ideas, it is impossible 
logically to deduce any other conclusion than that 
the universe is the produ6t of an infinite mental- 
ity, the result of infinite mental a6tivity, and as 
such muSt itself be wholly mental. 

Logically, then, on the assumption of an in- 
finite universe, the creator muSt be an infinite 
mind, and muSt be omnipotent, unlimited in ex- 
tent, infinitely intelligent, and wholly perfect, that 
is, good. The creator muSt be mental, and we our- 
selves and all with which we have to do muSt be 
on a mental plane. 

We further conclude that this creator muSt be 
sexless and incorporeal. Being mind, the creator 
is immaterial. Since it is infinite in extent, it 
muSt be omnipresent, and muSt include all that 
exists. It muSt, therefore, include its own crea- 
tion ; and this creation, being the produ6t of men- 
tal activity, and being included in infinite mind, 
muSt consist of that which mind produces, namely, 
ideas. Since omnipotent mind can never be less 
than omnipotent, it is eternal; and that which it 
includes, its ideas, muSt likewise be eternal, coex- 
istent with it. 

On this basis the a6t of creation cannot be what 
men have so generally supposed, the calling into 
existence of a material universe from chaos, or 
nothingness, but muSt be the unfolding of exiStent 
ideas within this unlimited mind. On the human 
plane mind is expressed in and by ideas. So 017 

39 



THE DIARY OF 

the infinite plane, the infinite mind manif eSts itself 
in and by its ideas, and the unfolding of these 
ideas constitutes the a6t of creation. An infinite 
mind, however, muSt needs unfold an infinite num- 
ber of ideas in order to completely manifest and 
express itself, and muSt needs require an infinite 
extent of time in which to do this. Therefore, 
creation Still continues, and muSt forever con- 
tinue, as the infinite mind forever unfolds within 
itself the numberless ideas that are required to 
express it. 

Infinite mind muSt be infinite in variety. So 
the ideas that express it muSt vary from the leaSt 
to the greatest, from the infinitesimal to the in- 
finite, in magnitude and complexity — that is, there 
mu£t be an infinite number and variety of ideas in 
infinite mind. But the greatest idea that can exiSt 
within this mind is the idea of the mind itself, the 
idea of the mind's own greatness and grandeur. 
This idea muSt of necessity include all other ideas, 
since it is the idea of the complete mind. In other 
words, this greatest idea of infinite mind muSt be 
the exacSt image and likeness of that mind. Ex- 
pressing infinite mind in its completeness, its 
qualities and attributes, and its infinite activities, 
this greatest idea may be called the reflection of 
infinite mind. 

The infinite creative mind bears the relation- 
ship, not merely of father, but of "father- 
mother, ' 9 to its creation. There is no term in our 
language which will adequately express this re- 
lationship, and we therefore continue the use of 

40 



JEAN EVARTS 

masculine terms when referring to the creator. 
The term God, a derivative of the Saxon Gut, 
more nearly expresses the thought of the infinite 
father-mother as being Good, a thing wholly men- 
tal. A synonym of mind which occurs in one of 
the old languages is the term Man. This we will 
use to express the infinite idea of the infinite 
creator, the image and likeness, the reflection 
of God. 

We have now begun to answer the question, 
What is God? And in doing so we have partly 
developed the thought of God's greatest idea, 
which we have called Man. If our reasoning is 
corre6t, even though it has been from ef£e6t to 
cause, we are ready to say that God is Mind, in- 
corporeal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, 
and omnibeneficent, and that He is sexless, not 
solely Father, nor Mother, but combining all the 
qualities that both of these terms imply. He is 
the only Cause, the only Creator, the only Sus- 
tainer, and the only Power. 

Continuing the development of our subje6t, 
and capitalizing all terms that are synonymous 
with the terms God and His idea, Man, to distin- 
guish them from those which refer to attributes 
only, we may say that, since God is "that by which 
all else is," He is the infinite Principle of every- 
thing that exists. In a sense, He is law, and His 
laws are the only laws. 

He is eternal, self-existent, unchanging — He is 
infinite Life. 

41 



THE DIAEY OF 

He is perfect and harmonious — He is infinite 
Truth. ' 

He is omnibeneficent — He is infinite Love. 

He is the sub&tance, the heart and core of all 
that is. He is the inmost and only true nature of 
the Creation — He is infinite Soul. 

He is unlimited in extent, hence, omnipresent 
— He is infinite Spirit. 

He includes all intelligence and all power — 
He is infinite Mind. 

He is and includes all that is real, permanent, 
and true — He is infinite Good. 

He is Mind, and He is infinite, and He mani- 
fests and expresses Himself in an infinite number 
and variety of ways. Therefore, all that exists, 
all that is or can be, muSt be included in God and 
His manifestation. 

Since God is Spirit, the Creation, which is the 
unfolding of His ideas, muSt be like Himself in 
quality, spiritual, perfe6t, and eternal. His whole 
Creation, including Man, mu&t be the expression 
of His perfect Being. His ideas may be called 
His "children," and these are countless. His 
Creation, including Man, is embraced in His 
thought ; and the nature of this thought is wholly 
good — "For I know the thoughts that I think 
towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, 
and not of evil, to give you an expe6ted end. ' ' 

Since Man is the idea of God's own self, he 
muSfc be a " compound idea, ' ' for he mu&t embrace 
all other ideas of infinite Mind. He mu&t be God's 
image and likeness, Standing for all that mani- 

,42 



JEAN EVARTS 

feSts and reflects Him. He muSt be Mind's high- 
est and greatest idea, the offspring of God. He 
may, therefore, be called the Son of God, for he 
manifests sonship in the highest sense of the term. 
As God is, so muSt Man be as His reflection, hav- 
ing no power or mind of his own, but reflecting 
through manifestation all that God is and con- 
tains. All of the ideas constituting the Creation, 
from the lowest to the highest, are embraced in 
Mind, and are included in Mind's thought. By 
and through these ideas Mind expresses and mani- 
fests itself. Therefore, there can be nothing apart 
from or outside of God and the numberless ideas 
through which He is manifested. 



"These thoughts I now leave with you," said 
my friend, as he rose and prepared to go. "I do 
not give them to you as my own, for they did not 
originate with me, but have come from one to 
whom I owe an endless debt of gratitude. The 
thoughts of God as the infinite Father-Mother, 
and of the Creation as the unfolding of ideas 
within infinite Mind; the development of the 
thought of God as infinite Principle, Truth, Soul, 
have all come from one whose name I shall give 
you, when in our talks we have led up to it and to 
the revelation with which it is associated. Today 
we have used many of the ideas that are included 
in this revelation. I want you to know that the 
credit for their discovery is not mine, and that, 
when in the unfolding of this message we have 

43 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

reached the revelation to which these ideas be- 
long, we shall turn back and properly place the 
credit for them. The truths that have been given 
to you today doubtless seem strange, and difficult 
to understand. But be patient; the light of 
understanding will come; your questions will be 
answered, and your doubts cleared away." 

Then he left me ; and with his going the sun- 
light seemed to fade, and the birds grew quiet, 
and as I wandered back to the house a great long- 
ing filled me. 



44 



MAY 14TH 



MAY 14TH 




S I sat at his feet this morning, ab- 
sorbed in his words, I thought of 
the Disciples, sitting at the feet of 
Jesus and listening so eagerly to 
the Strange things he taught them, 
things as new to them as this is to 
me. And I wondered if the message that is now 
being unfolded could be like that which the patient 
Jesus gave to his wondering followers, and, if so, 
why his name had not been mentioned in connec- 
tion with it. But I can wait. And meantime, I 
have much to think of tonight. 



# 



It is needless to say that the assumption that 
there can be nothing apart from or outside of God 
and the numberless ideas through which He is 
manifested is diametrically opposed to popular 
belief. That the universe is material, and man a 
union of mind and matter ; that God is Spirit, but 
that He created man out of the du£t of the ground 
and breathed the spirit of life into him ; that man 
subsequently fell from some high estate, and was 
long afterward redeemed by a mighty sacrifice of 
God ; that sickness and misery are trials imposed 
upon us by a beneficent Father to prepare us for 
eternal happiness ; and that death is the gateway 
to everlasting life, are the beliefs commonly held 
in the world today and preached from our pulpits 
and platforms. 

That such opinions break every law of sane 
and logical reasoning, and make a God of infinite 

47 



THE DIARY OF 

goodness responsible for the creation and main- 
tenance of evil, seems not to have caused much 
difficulty in the reasoning processes of men. Nor 
do men seem to realize that the effort to mingle 
mind and matter, Good and evil, is as futile as the 
attempt to dilute light with darkness, and that the 
confusion of thought resulting from the effort to 
reconcile such opposites is responsible for the 
woes of humanity. 

In our ages of research we have found nothing 
in the material view of the universe that in the 
slightest degree indicates its origin. Reasoning 
from suns to formless mi§t simply pushes the 
question farther away from us, without even re- 
motely answering it. The Nebular Hypothesis — 
given sufficient data — may catalogue a series of 
material phenomena, but it explains nothing. 
Mi&ts may form into suns and worlds, through 
countless periods of time — these may become the 
abodes of sentient beings — and again may return 
to formless mi£t. The human mind can say that 
"the hour-hand of Eternity has then made an- 
other revolution ;' ' but why it has revolved, 
whence the planetary mi&t whose cycles it records, 
and what the awful Power that is thus expressed 
— no man dares to say. 

As an effect, the universe demands a cause; 
and we may assume that it was created by an ex- 
ternal agency, or that it is self-created, or that it 
has always existed. But, as Spencer says, this 
third assumption does not carry us beyond the 
cognition of its present existence, and amounts to 

48 



JEAN EVARTS 

nothing more than a restatement of the problem. 

If matter and mind exiSt side by side, and if 
men's minds are cognizant of matter, we muSt 
conclude that in some way matter gets into mind. 
On the other hand, there seems to be abundant 
evidence that mind likewise inhabits matter, at 
leaSt what is known as sentient matter. 

But if mind is in matter, and matter in mind, 
they muSt be one and the same thing, without dis- 
tinction as to quality. And popular opinion seems 
to be shaping itself to accord with this view. It 
was formerly thought that the atom was the fun- 
damental basis of the Structure of matter, the 
atom being described as a particle of matter so 
minute as to admit of no further division. But 
this theory led dire6tly to the implication that 
anything that did not admit of further division 
could not consist of matter, and therefore muSt be 
theoretical, existing in thought only. A material 
obje6t was conceived of as consisting of atoms, 
held together by the law of gravitation. If this 
were true, it would remove so-called material ob- 
jects at once from the domain of matter, for an 
obje6t consisting of mental atoms bound together 
by a mental adhesive, the law of gravitation, could 
itself be only mental, or a thing of thought. 

Since the human mind felt itself under the 
necessity of explaining all phenomena on a physi- 
cal basis, a basis of matter, rather than admit the 
mental basis of all force and activity, it was 
obliged to infer the existence of a medium, the 
motions or vibrations of which would constitute 

49 



THE DIABY OF 

all motion, force, a6tion, and energy. It would 
have been much more natural and simple to have 
called it mind at once; but the human mentality 
has been loath to develop its thought along any 
but £tri<5tly material lines, and so it called this 
postulated medium the "ether," and assumed for 
it properties that are in the highest degree re- 
markable, as showing to what lengths the human 
mind will go in its efforts to avoid any but ma- 
terial conclusions. The ether mu§t fill all space, 
and mu£t constitute the basis of all a6tivity, of all 
material phenomena, of all vibratory a<5tion, as 
light, heat, and radio-a6tivity, as well as electric- 
ity. But it can have neither weight, shape, ta&te, 
smell, nor visibility. It can have none of the prop- 
erties common to matter. It cannot be perceived 
by any of the five physical senses. It mu£t be ex- 
ceedingly tenuous, enormously elastic, and much 
more rigid than anything that we can conceive of. 
Although filling all space, it mu&t be more rigid 
than steel, and some millions of times lighter than 
air. To such Straits is the human mind driven 
when it attempts to formulate a material basis for 
that which is wholly mental ! 

In the opinion of the leading philosophers to- 
day, matter is nothing more than a form of ether 
activity. The atom, instead of being an ultimate, 
non-resolvable particle, is now regarded as the re- 
sultant of a number of corpuscles, or ' ' electrons, ' ' 
the electrons being mere centers of a6tivity in the 
ether. Matter, then, becomes energy, or the result 
of some sort of activity. Activity of what? 

50 



JEAN EVARTS 

Simply activity itself, or that which Stands for 
activity in the ether, the ether Still being regarded 
as an invisible, intangible, impalpable, unexplain- 
able thing, so subtle that it penetrates everything, 
and so "peculiar" that it is subject to no known 
laws of dynamics. The electron, in the words of 
the discoverer of radio-a6tivity, "turns out to be 
nothing more than superimposed layers of posi- 
tive and negative electricity. ' ' So, then, the basis 
of matter is i i superimposed layers of positive and 
negative electricity. " And all that we know of 
the essential nature of electricity is that it seems 
to be a manifestation of energy — and energy is in- 
tangible, immaterial, and perceived only by its 
effects, or manifestations. 

Of one thing, however, we are very sure — that 
the activities of the so-called ether are enormously 
greater than those which we are accustomed to 
attribute to what is commonly called "matter," 
and the greater part, the far greater part, of this 
activity is wholly unperceived by the physical 
senses, and therefore remains unknown to us. This 
f a6t should have been a leading light to those fair- 
minded workers who were seeking the true basis 
of all phenomena, especially to men of such clear 
thought as Tyndall, who said, ' 6 The roots of phe- 
nomena are imbedded in a region beyond the reach 
of the senses." 

But it may be urged that a thing is no less ma- 
terial because it cannot be perceived by the five 
physical senses. The greater part of such vibra- 
tions as constitute the phenomenon called light are 

51 



THE DIARY OF 

unperceived by the eye. To this it may be replied 
that the chara<5ter of light waves, or vibrations, 
has never been established as in the slightest de- 
gree material. But, even on the assumption that 
they were as material as the waves of air that are 
supposed to produce the sensations called sound, 
how can such waves be supposed to get into the 
mind, even granting that they do penetrate the eye 
or the material ear? 

Whatever the basis of matter, we mu§t admit 
that it is comprehensible to us only through the 
five so-called physical senses. We may go even 
farther and say that, at leaSt as far as we are con- 
cerned, it owes its existence to the testimony of 
these senses. Through no other medium than one 
or more of these physical senses can we form any 
concept whatever of what we call material sub- 
Stance. 

And yet, certain as we are that we can see ma- 
terial objects with the eye, when we attempt to 
explain the process of cognizing them we are com- 
pletely baffled. 

Our concept of a physical universe surround- 
ing us is due more largely to the sense of sight 
than to any one of the other senses. When we 
look at a material obje6t, light coming from that 
obje6t is supposed to enter the eye and ca&t an 
image of the object upon the retina, much as a 
pi6ture is thrown upon the ground glass of a cam- 
era. The little rods and cones, the branching tips 
of the optic nerve which proje6t from the retina, 
are set in motion by the light waves, which in 

52 



JEAN EVARTS 

some way communicate their vibration to them. 
This vibration is transmitted along the optic 
nerve to a center in the brain, and in some un- 
known way the mind becomes cognizant of the ma- 
terial obje6t without. 

Many questions are pertinent here. Is the 
mind within the brain, waiting for vibrations that 
will give it information concerning the external 
world? Or does the mind, from some focal point 
outside the brain, look at these vibrations and then 
translate them into terms of things without? Does 
the mind see fir&t the vibrating nerve points, and 
then form its own opinion regarding material ob- 
jects? Or do these vibrations in some way, whether 
by length of amplitude or rapidity of motion, sug- 
gest a definite basis from which the mind can build 
up its pi6tures of what the eye is supposed to see ? 
Does anything material enter the eye? No, unless 
vibrations, pure and simple, may be called ma- 
terial. Then why does the mind not rather look 
at the image on the retina, even though it be in- 
verted, and see a definite pi6ture of the object, in- 
stead of looking at vibrations and then forming 
its concept from them? Or, better Still, instead of 
this clumsy and roundabout way of looking at 
things, why does not the mind look dire6tly at the 
material obje6t, and thus avoid this complex 
process and the uncertain dependence upon such 
a frail medium as the material eye? In other 
words, does our awareness of objects depend upon 
the vibrations of pieces of nerve tissue, so small 
as to be almost invisible to the unaided vision? Is 

53 



THE DIARY OF 

the mind, of which we boa§t such wonderful pow- 
ers, prostituted to such a degree that its knowl- 
edge of the outside world mu£t be brought to it 
through the waving of pieces of flesh? Yet that, 
and ju£t that, is what unthinking humanity be- 
lieves today! 

The same reasoning applies with equal force 
to the other physical senses, for it is certain that 
all we can be sure of from them is a series of vi- 
brations. The physical sense-teStimony , from 
which we think we get our idea of an external 
world, can consist of nothing more than a lot of 
disconnected vibrations; and anything that the 
mind may infer from these vibrations is inferred 
without any outside authority whatsoever. If the 
five physical senses give us anything at all, they 
give us vibrations, nothing more. 

Without some power of reasoning, it is impos- 
sible to conceive how the mind could build up con- 
cepts of material obje6ts from the mass of dis- 
conne6ted vibrations it is supposed to receive 
through the physical senses. If we admit that the 
mind does receive its knowledge of an external 
universe through these senses, we mu£t likewise 
admit that it possesses the power of reasoning, 
whether true or false, and that understanding, 
which is in no way dependent upon vibrations or 
sensuous experience, fir£t has to sort over this 
mass of vibration-sensations and arrange them, in 
the light of the mind's pa£t experience or educa- 
tion, into the various mental concepts which it is 
pleased to call the external universe. 

54 



JEAN EVAETS 

And so it comes about that, in the laSt analysis, 
the mind knows these sensations only as mental 
f a6ts, and its sum total of experience, its conscious 
existence, becomes a series of mental States. The 
mind may think that it is perceiving external ob- 
je<5ts, and it may attribute to them the qualities of 
color, extension, solidity, taSte, and substance, but 
when it begins to look for the origin of these 
things it is driven back to its own self. The mind 
is forced to admit that it knows the contents of its 
own consciousness, and nothing more. 

But the contents of consciousness are thoughts 
and ideas. Solid material obje6ts do not enter the 
mind, but only thoughts and ideas regarding them. 
We are therefore obliged to conclude that, instead 
of seeing, hearing, and feeling real material ob- 
jects outside of ourselves, we are in reality seeing, 
hearing, and feeling our mental concepts of ob- 
jedis — in other words, our own thoughts, ideas, 
and beliefs. This Stupendous fa<5t, accepted and 
applied by mankind, will prove to be the Archi- 
median lever by which the whole world will be 
moved. 



"Enough for today, " said my friend, with a 
little laugh. ' ' The frown on your forehead shows 
me that your thought is already more than full 
We muSt aim to avoid confusion. We concluded 
from our reasoning yeSterday that there could be 
nothing apart from or outside of God and the 
numberless ideas through and by which He is 

55 



THE DIAEY OF JEAN EVAKTS 

manifested. If this is true, there can be no such 
thing as matter. I have only been reaching this 
same conclusion by a somewhat different line of 
reasoning. ' ' 

And with that he left me. 



56 



MAY 15TH 




MAY 15TH 

Y brain was almost bursting with 
questions and protects when he 
came this morning. But the look 
of sincerity on his face, and the 
calm assurance in his quiet man- 
ner and gentle greeting seemed a 
sufficient answer to them all and left me contented 
only to sit and listen, gratefully breathing the air 
of peace and serenity which all Nature seemed to 
radiate. My prayer tonight is that I may under- 
stand what he has told me, and know that it 
is true. 



In the light of what was said yesterday we are 
now prepared to accept the great fa6t that, to us, 
consciousness is existence. Consciousness may be 
defined as "mental activity." And mental activ- 
ity is the a6tivity of thought. Consciousness then 
becomes a mental a6tivity which results in the ex- 
ternalization, or mental picturing, of thoughts, 
these thoughts being grouped into thought- 
obje6ts, or concepts. 

Our consciousness of things is supposed to 
come through the physical senses, and to be the 
direct result of sense -testimony. We see an ob- 
je6t, a tree, a house, and we say we at once become 
conscious of it. And so through all our conscious 
experience we interpret consciousness in terms of 
the outside world. It seems never to have occurred 
to us to interpret the outside world in terms of 
consciousness. 

59 



THE DIAEY OF 

But we have seen that all we can hope to get 
from the physical senses is a series of vibrations 
in the brain. We mu&t either believe that these 
count for nothing, or else insult intelligence by 
trying to believe that the mind makes up its con- 
cepts, its mental pi6tures of form, color, etc., from 
the vibrations of pieces of nerve tissue. 

In casting about for another and higher ex- 
planation of mental a6tivity, or consciousness, we 
have discovered the tremendous fa6t that we do 
not perceive absolute truth through the five so- 
called physical senses. Truth comes only through 
the understanding. The understanding is wholly 
independent of sense-teStimony, and does not 
judge according to appearances. If it did, the 
earth would Still be flat, the sun would revolve 
about it and sink each night into the sea, the moon 
would be a disc a few inches in diameter, and ma- 
terial obje6ts would diminish in size as they were 
removed from the organ of vision. As we know 
from experience, sense-teStimony is most unre- 
liable. Were it not for reason and understanding, 
by which the sense impressions are sorted and 
arranged and then interpreted, we would be led 
into all sorts of unpleasant experiences, like the 
difficulties a baby undergoes while developing its 
reason, and which, while doing so, is almoSt wholly 
at the mercy of sense-impression. The greatest 
things with which we have to do, love, truth, good- 
ness, are wholly immaterial, and entirely inde- 
pendent of the physical senses. The truth of the 
multiplication table, for example, is in no way de- 

60 



JEAN EVARTS 

pendent upon the testimony of these so-called 
senses. 

Further, since consciousness is believed to be 
dependent upon the testimony of the physical 
senses, and since these senses do not testify of 
truth, that is, of absolute truth, the resulting con- 
sciousness mu&t be made up of errors, untruths, 
and therefore mu§t be a false consciousness, and 
no more a real consciousness than a counterfeit 
dollar is a real dollar. 

Matter, as conceived by human beings, cannot 
get into mind. The material tree that we look at 
never enters the mind. Instead, we are conscious 
of a mental impression. We see our thoughts of 
the tree — our thoughts regarding the idea i ' tree ' ' 
— and these thoughts combine to make up within 
the mind the mental concept which we call tree. 

It follows, therefore, that we do not see ex- 
ternal things, or things outside of ourselves, but 
only the thoughts and ideas that are within our 
mentalities. The form we give an obje6t is deter- 
mined by our own mental condition, that is, by the 
thoughts within our own mentalities that we, as 
perceiving minds, are looking at. Hence, the exist- 
ence of a world outside of ourselves, an objeSiive 
world composed of matter, is wholly inferred and 
muSt be unreal. 

To believe in the real existence of matter is but 
to place undue emphasis upon our own mental 
concepts. It is the unwarranted attempt to make 
an objective something of what is but a mental 
pi6ture. Material obje6ts are* only objectified 

61 



THE DIARY OF 

sense-impressions; and since sense-impression is 
erroneous and unreal, matter becomes a counter- 
feit of reality, that is, a counterfeit of real sub- 
stance. Of what it is the counterfeit, our physical 
senses cannot tell us, for they do not testify of 
truth. Only a sense that can perceive and testify 
of absolute truth can declare this to us. 

To repeat, our consciousness, which is our 
existence, is a mental activity, the a6tivity of 
thought. We are alive to that of which we are 
conscious, to that with which our thought is a6tive. 
We receive no testimony whatever from the five 
so-called physical senses. The testimony which 
they are supposed to afford us is but the thought 
that is present in our mentalities. We do not see, 
hear, and feel real things, but only our thoughts 
or concepts of things. And the forms and char- 
a6ieri§lics which these concepts will assume de- 
pend upon the quality of thought out of which 
they are conStruSled. 

Matter, then, is the mind's interpretation of 
substance. In other words, matter is the way 
substance looks to the human mentality. Its qual- 
ities and attributes are the qualities and attri- 
butes with which the mind dowers its own con- 
cepts. The mind forms its thoughts into mental 
concepts — or such thoughts form of themselves 
into concepts — which, are then furnished with var- 
ious qualities, as form, extension, color, etc., and 
become posited or proje6ted within the mind with 
regard to one another, and are then called ma- 
terial obje6ts seen in space. But the space is 

62 



JEAN EVARTS 

wholly within the perceiving mind, and is as much 
a mental concept as the objects themselves. There 
is no more reason for assuming the existence of 
external space, like the commonly accepted idea 
of space, than there is for assuming a real space 
in which to dream. In our dreams we seem to 
see obje<5ts distributed in space, and the obje6ts 
and space appear very real to us. We shall fina 
that our waking concept of material objects and 
a space in which they are perceived are no more 
real than are our dreams. 

Everything thus reduces to a mental plane, 
and man himself becomes wholly mental. His 
body, ju§t as material as the tree which he be- 
lieves he sees, is, like the tree, within his thought, 
and is no more his real self than is the tree. The 
body that men think they see is their concept of 
body, and is wholly mental. As all objects within 
the human mind are made up of thought, so the 
body is a thing of thought. It has been said that 
the body is " an embodiment of conscious and un- 
conscious mentality, the developed mortal thought 
of selfhood, the externalization of a personal 
sense of physical being. " That it is mental is 
further shown by its responsiveness to thought 
that is directed to it. Even materialists admit this 
to a degree when they concede that the body is 
aff e<5ted to a very great extent by the mind. How 
can the mind affeSl anything that does not come 
within its thought? And where is its thought but 
within itself? 

63 



THE DIABY OF 

The Ego, the " I, " is not material, nor a union 
of matter and mind, but is wholly a mental thing, 
a consciousness. Our conscious existence is our 
life, and we live in consciousness. To say that a 
man may lose consciousness and Still live, does 
not alter this as a Statement of truth, as will ap- 
pear as we develop the thought of man as mental. 
We are conscious only of what is within conscious- 
ness, that is, within ourselves. But only thought 
can enter consciousness. Therefore, we are not 
conscious of things, but of thoughts of things. 
"When these thoughts enter the consciousness they 
build up thought-concepts, or so-called ideas, and 
hence it is that, in the laSt analysis, we are con- 
scious only of mental images, mental concepts, 
and not real things. Again, therefore, we cannot 
resist the conclusion that "the human mind sees, 
hears, feels, taStes, and smells only its own 
thoughts." Our supposed "outer world" is but 
our collection of thought-concepts that we hold 
within us, within our own consciousness, or mind. 

Obje6ts exiSt for us, therefore, only as the 
mind builds up concepts, or as these concepts 
form or are formed, within the mentality itself. 
Our thoughts are not things, but they represent 
our interpretation of things. The world of things 
can be defined only on the basis that it is a 
thought-world, that is, that it exiSts in our thought 
only. A thought-world thus becomes the only 
world that is knowable to us at all. InStead of 
knowing a real universe, we know only our 
thoughts of a universe. 

64 



JEAN EVAETS 

The same conclusion is reached even on the 
assumption that consciousness does depend upon 
the evidence derived from the physical senses, for 
we are forced to admit that absolutely the only 
knowledge that the five physical senses can afford 
us of the nature or existence of a physical or ma- 
terial universe is by means of certain sensations, 
or nervous disturbances, which the material ob- 
jects that we think exiSt without us are supposed 
to excite in the brain. The mind is then left to do 
the reSt itself, for the material process of cogni- 
tion Stops at this point, and the mind, with nothing 
but these nervous disturbances to guide it, with 
nothing else to indicate color, form, or any other 
quality or characteristic of a material obje6t, pro- 
jects, unaided and alone, the entire physical 
universe. 

Of what does knowledge of a tree consist? Do 
not the thoughts that one is able to receive or hold 
regarding a tree constitute the sum total of what- 
ever knowledge or consciousness one can have of 
the tree? We know a tree by a process of thought. 
We think the tree, that is, we firSt reduce it to 
terms of thought. We have the thought of touch- 
ing the tree. Then follow thoughts of hardness, 
of roughness, of impenetrability, and all the 
others that combine to make up a mental concept 
of "tree." Every single quality that the tree is 
supposed to have is suggested by the perceiving 
mind, and is the result of experience or so-called 
education. The thought-tree is the only tree that 
the mind can know or become conscious of. From 

65 



THE DIAEY OF 

its consciousness of tree it infers that a material 
tree exists, outside of itself, as the exciting cause 
of its consciousness or mental State regarding 
the tree. 

Thus it is that causation comes to be thought 
of as something outside. And this belief is sup- 
ported by the apparent fa6t that the mental pic- 
tures with which we have to do seem to be thruSt 
upon us whether we wish it or not, and through 
no choice of our own. We seem to see constantly 
the same objects, the same bodies, the same peo- 
ple, etc., although we muSt admit that they are all 
in a State of constant, though slow, change. These 
changes we attribute to wa&te, decay, senility, etc. 
Every-day objects are so familiar to us that they 
come to be regarded by us as more or less fixed, 
subject, as we say, only to natural changes as 
time goes on. We are not supposed to be able to 
accelerate or retard these changes to any marked 
or permanent degree. 

And yet, the human mind is awaking to the 
great fa6t that the evidence before the physical 
senses can be changed in response to a perma- 
nently changed thought regarding it, and often 
changed very rapidly. The law that we seem to 
be slowly grasping is, firSt, a permanently altered 
thought, and, second, a changed material object. 
If this holds true in a single instance, it will hold 
true for the entire objective world. 

When we understand that our consciousness is 
our sense of existence, our sense of being alive; 
and that obje6ts and things are proje6ted mental 

66 



JEAN EVARTS 

images, mental concepts projected within the con- 
sciousness itself, and formed and made up only of 
thought ; and when we realize that a permanently 
changed thought invariably results in a changed 
mental concept, and therefore in a change in the 
form or character of the supposed material ob- 
je<5t, we have begun to grasp the significance of 
the greatest discovery of our age. 

As Stated yesterday, philosophers are begin- 
ning to regard matter as a phenomenon of force. 
But all the knowledge we can have of the phenom- 
ena of the activities of force is mental. What we 
call the interplay of forces is but a mental pi6ture, 
for if this force which is being regarded as the 
objective world is not thought-force, we cannot 
know it. On the other hand, if it is thought-force, 
we can understand it and control it. This hypoth- 
esis is likewise being found to Stand the teSt, and 
we are learning that we can control the manifesta- 
tions of material thought, erroneously called ma- 
terial objects and material environment. 

The entire course of suppositional activity of 
material sense, the sense of matter as subStance, 
is erroneous. In its firSt Step it projects its own 
mental concepts and calls the pi6ture an objective 
world of matter. Then it attempts to endow this 
externalized picture with life and intelligence, be- 
stowing upon it its own perverted sense of life 
and intelligence, and calling it " matter perceived 
by the mind" — in total ignorance of the fa6t that 
in all this process it has been viewing only its own 
image, its own energy, motion, or force, its own 

67 



THE DIARY OF 

thoughts and concepts, even while believing these 
things to be external to itself. 

Again, matter being mental, the prevailing 
belief that life is in matter, or that life is within 
a material or fleshly body, is erroneous. The body, 
like all other so-called material objects, is con- 
tained in consciousness, and we no more exiSt in 
our fleshly bodies than we do in the material ob- 
je6ts that we think we see about us. InSlead of 
being in our bodies, our bodies are in us, that is, 
in consciousness. When we grasp this fa6t we 
begin to have an enlarged view of mankind, a 
grander concept of the real, spiritual Man. 

Now that we have seen that the mental con- 
cepts which are erroneously supposed to consti- 
tute an external universe of matter are made up 
of thought, and that the a6tivity of thought con- 
stitutes consciousness, we are prepared to grasp 
the tremendous importance of right thinking. 
Since consciousness is mental activity, our exist- 
ence depends upon thought. True thought results 
in true consciousness, and in the formation of 
mental concepts that are real and perfe6t. Erron- 
eous thought results in a false consciousness, 
whose mental concepts are unreal, and whose pro- 
jected universe will therefore refle6t the quality of 
the thought producing it. 



" It is of vital importance that we should learn 
to know what real thought is, ? ' he concluded, ' ' and 
to distinguish clearly between that which is real 

68 



JEAN EVAETS 

and that which only simulates reality, for upon 
the quality of our thinking depends the quality of 
consciousness, and it lies with us whether we will 
be conscious of health, abundance, and immortal- 
ity, or of sickness, poverty, and death." 

For a long time after he had gone I sat think- 
ing of these things ; and as I pondered the mean- 
ing of his words the light seemed to break upon 
my clouded vision. Then I rose and walked slowly 
back to the house, like one in a dream. 



69 



MAY 16TH 




MAY 16TH 

HEN we were again seated on the 
ledge this morning, the soft winds 
with their firSt light burden of per- 
fume from the waking buds play- 
ing about us, the deep blue sky 
cloudless above, and the sunlight 
so intense, so brilliant, that the colors of the hills 
and valley melted and fused into a glowing white, 
it seemed to my waiting thought that God mu§t 
have drawn very close to me in these la£t few 
days. 

"It is but the beginning of an acquaintance 
with Truth," said my friend, "which is fulfilling 
the promise of that peace which passeth under- 
Standing. ' ' 

And as I looked up into his calm face with a 
smile of happy response to his, I knew it mu§t 
be so. 



In our firSt talk we sought to deduce from the 
premise of an infinite universe the conclusion that 
its creator could not be less than infinite, omnipo- 
tent, omnipresent, omniscient Mind, eternal and 
perfe6t, and that Man mu§t be the Creator's great- 
est and grandest idea, His perfe6t image and like- 
ness, reflecting Him in every attribute and char- 
acteristic. Although we tried to reason logically 
from effect back to cause, we did so because only 
in this way have men sought to establish the ex- 
istence of God and to determine His attributes. 
We know that in our every-day life we deal almoSt 

73 



THE DIARY OF 

exclusively with phenomena, appearances, rather 
than reality ; and men have thought it only natural 
to take what data they seemed to have at hand and 
reason from it back to its origin. But you will 
soon see that this very method of reasoning has 
been responsible for much of the confusion of 
thought today regarding God and His Creation. 
The message that is being unfolded to you re- 
verses this order, and starting with God as Causa- 
tion in the widest sense, it reasons from this major 
premise to a perfe6t effe6t, perfe6t Creation, in- 
cluding perfe6t Man. Attempting to reason from 
appearances back to reality is much like viewing 
a motion pi6ture and, with no knowledge of what 
the pi6ture Stands for, trying to deduce from it the 
natures and characteristics of the men and women 
whose shadows move before us on the screen. And 
yet, even with the imperfect method that we have 
employed, it is difficult to see how mankind could 
have escaped the conclusion that the creator muSt 
be Mind, and His Creation wholly mental. 

Yesterday we discussed to some extent the 
popular belief in the existence of matter and ma- 
terial man, and drew the conclusion that the so- 
called physical senses afford no testimony what- 
ever, and that the human mind sees, feels, hears, 
smells and taStes only its own thoughts, from 
which thoughts it builds up mental images, or 
concepts, which it projects or posits within itself 
with reference to one another, calling them ma- 
terial objects perceived by the mind and consti- 
tuting an external universe, from which it, in turn, 

74 



JEAN EVARTS 

believes it receives information through the 
medium of the five physical senses. 

"We saw, firSt, that Man, being the perf e6t idea 
of God, mu&t be harmonious and eternal, never 
manifesting anything but what he receives from 
his Principle, God. If we accept this as true, how 
are we going to account for the material person- 
ality, called man, which we seem to see all about 
us, sinning, suffering, and dying? 

We have already seen that the human man, in- 
stead of being a compound of mind and matter, is 
really a sort of mentality, in other words, a con- 
sciousness. Since he is mortal, if man is a mind 
at all, he is a mortal mind. 

The opposite of that which is real mu£t be un- 
real, and its existence can only be suppositional. 
In this way, every real thing has its suppositional 
opposite. Truth is real; its suppositional oppo- 
site is falsity, which is unreal. The genuine is 
real ; its suppositional opposite is the counterfeit, 
which is unreal. Everything with which we have 
to do in our experience may be classified as either 
real or unreal. If life is real, its opposite, death, 
is unreal. If joy is real, its opposite, sorrow, is 
unreal. If good is real, its opposite, evil, mu£t 
be unreal. 

The truth of a mathematical principle is un- 
questioned. When intelligently applied to a prob- 
lem the correct solution will be obtained. Incor- 
rectly applied, errors result. Can we say that the 
errors we make in solving mathematical problems 
are real? Spencer says that the teSt of reality is 

75 



THE DIARY OF 

permanence. What becomes of the errors when 
we corre6tly apply the mathematical principle? 
There is no question of the permanence of the 
principle; it is eternal, immortal. The truth of 
the Multiplication Table is everlasting. Nothing 
can change it or, aff e6t it in any way. But can we 
say that the errors we make in adding a column 
of figures are permanent? And if not, are they 
in any sense real? 

The musician knows that as long as he cor- 
rectly applies the principles of harmony he will 
make no discords. But he likewise knows that the 
slightest deviation from these principles will re- 
sult in that which is the opposite of music. The 
principles are immortal; the discords la&t only 
until they are corre6ted by a right application of 
the principles of music. 

The same holds for every art, and, indeed, for 
everything with which we have to do. There are 
principles which mu§t be applied, and applied in- 
telligently, if we would bring out harmony and 
corre6t solutions in our work. No engineer with- 
out corre6tly applying certain principles could 
build a bridge. No sculptor in defiance of prin- 
ciples could produce a work of art. In every case, 
the principles are permanent and eternal, and the 
errors are transitory, disappearing when the prin- 
ciples are known and corre6tly applied. 

A counterfeit dollar, however much it may 
simulate the shape and appearance of the reality, 
is never a dollar. Ignorance regarding its com- 
position may cause mistakes and trouble, but the 

76 



JEAN EVARTS 

counterfeit will remain such until it is a6tually 
made over according to the principles by which 
real dollars are con§tru<5ted. 

Moreover, truth and error never combine. 
Opposites never unite. Light and darkness never 
mingle. Furthermore, it is absolutely impossible 
to really know error. We can know that 2+2=4, 
but we cannot know that the same sum makes 5 
or 9, Nothing can be known definitely except as 
it is explained by the principle which governs it. 
Nothing could be known about music, art, mathe- 
matics, engineering, or anything else, were there 
no fixed principles on which these things are 
based. Now on what principle is an error based, 
whether that error be in the solution of a mathe- 
matical or a life problem? 

We have deduced, at leaSt as a working hypoth- 
esis, the conclusion that the Creator is infinite, 
that He is Mind, and that there can be nothing 
apart from Him. This Mind we have called God. 
Accepting this as a Statement of Principle by 
which to work out the problem of life, we shall 
have to assume this Mind to be real, and its oppo- 
site to be unreal, suppositional, transitory, and 
therefore mortal. We will call this opposite of 
Mind "mortal mind," and will include under that 
head all that is opposed to and unlike infinite 
Mind, or God. The term "mortal mind" is one 
used in the Statement of that revelation on which 
these talks are all based, and to which we are ap- 
proaching. If Mind includes Life, Harmony, and 

77 



THE DIARY OF , 

all Good, then death, discord, and all evil mu&t 
come under the head of "mortal mind." 

Some very interesting conclusions can now be 
deduced, if we logically follow out the implications 
of our Principle. If Mind is the cause and creator 
of all that exists, its counterfeit, mortal mind, 
mu§t likewise simulate a creation, for this coun- 
terfeit mu§t by its very nature pose as a creative 
principle. It must also simulate all the powers 
and attributes of real Mind. The counterfeit muSt 
present its man, the image and likeness of itself, 
and mu§t assume to create a universe which will 
be the dire6t opposite of the spiritual Universe 
created by Mind. It is this sort of man and this 
sort of universe that we seem to see all about us, 
and that ive refer to as human beings, or mortals, 
and the physical universe. The material person- 
ality, called man, which suffers and dies, is Man's 
counterfeit, a creation of Mind's opposite, mortal 
mind. 

Yet, though we seem to see this sort of man 
and a physical universe all about us, we are in 
reality looking only at our own thoughts of this 
kind of man and universe. Whatever we may 
think we see, if we analyze our own mental activ- 
ity we shall be forced to admit that, after all, we 
are viewing, not Man, not the Universe, but ma- 
terial thoughts regarding them. We are conscious 
of these thoughts as externalized mental pictures 
or concepts. 

We have seen that man is a consciousness, and 
that consciousness is mental a6tivity, the activity 

78 



JEAN EVARTS 

of thought. Thought, moreover, is the a6tivity of 
intelligence. Intelligence is based on knowledge, 
and both knowledge and intelligence are purely 
mental qualities. If, therefore, that thought whose 
activity constitutes a consciousness is based on 
real knowledge, the thought is real, and conse- 
quently the consciousness is real. If, however, 
the thought is based on supposition or specula- 
tion, and not on real knowledge, the consciousness 
mu&t be a speculative, supposititious, erroneous 
consciousness. 

The human consciousness builds up its mental 
concepts out of thoughts of matter, and then falls 
into the error of regarding these mental objects 
as real substance existing in a world outside of 
itself. Its fir£t error is the acceptance of the 
thought of a power opposed to Good and as real 
as Good. Once Started with this erroneous prem- 
ise, every conclusion based thereon will be false. 
It attempts to accept the thought that Spirit is 
infinite, while at the same time trying to reconcile 
it to the diametrically opposite thought of matter 
as real substance. It accepts the thought that it 
is itself a man, and that as such it consists of a 
mind in a material body, and it attempts to prove 
this by exhibiting the lifeless body of a man who 
has passed through the experience called death. 
It accepts the thought of sentient matter, of mat- 
ter possessing both life and sensation, and to 
prove this it will ask you to take up heated iron, 
or plunge the hand into boiling water. It believes 
that the continuance of life depends upon success- 

79 



THE DIAEY OF 

fully combating the evil powers about it that are 
continually working its destruction. It believes 
that germs and microbes seize it, and if not ex- 
pelled by drugs or natural processes, will deprive 
it of life. It is filled with thoughts of fear, of suf- 
fering, of Strife, mixed with thoughts of animal 
pleasures, mingled good and evil, longing for the 
real, complicated with diStruSt, doubt, some gleams 
of truth — withal, a truly remarkable combination, 
so complex that its various parts soon cease to 
coordinate, and its activity Stops in what it calls 
death. Yet it believes that its thought will be 
Stirred into new activity after death, and that its 
being will then be perpetuated. What this con- 
sciousness holds as knowledge is hut little more 
than belief and speculation. It brings out the 
fruits of such beliefs in discord, decay, and final 
dissolution. 

We may define as the "communal mortal 
mind" that suppositional opposite and counter- 
feit of real Mind. The children of this communal 
mortal mind are what the world knows as men, 
mankind, a kind of man. 

The children of Mind, God, are the images and 
likenesses of Himself. 

The sort of ideas by which the communal mor- 
tal mind expresses itself compose the material 
universe and all that it is supposed to include. 

The ideas by which the divine Mind expresses 
itself compose the real spiritual Universe and 
Man, the reality which lies back of what we seem 
to see. 

80 



JEAN EVARTS 

The communal mortal mind is false, discord- 
ant, and mortal, and will pass away. Its children, 
men, reflect its discord and mortality, and mu&t 
likewise pass away. 

The divine Mind is eternal and harmonious. 
Its children, like itself, are perfect and eternal. 

A mortal is the product of mortal thought or 
belief. Being mortal, it is but a temporary asso- 
ciation of erroneous views. Mortal minds, the 
minds called men, are material concepts of men. 
They are the results of the human mind's inter- 
pretation of the idea ' ' Man. ' ' Mortal mind, human 
consciousness, is the consciousness of mixed good 
and evil, of mingled light and darkness. It is the 
result of the effort to combine opposites which 
cannot mingle. The material universe and ma- 
terial man are formed in this consciousness out of 
the erroneous thought therein, and are projected 
and placed in this consciousness with reference to 
all the other mental concepts that constitute its 
universe. Individual mortal minds, the likenesses 
of the communal mortal mind, which itself is the 
opposite of infinite, divine Mind, form their own 
mortal, fleshly bodies out of the false material 
thought held within themselves. The mortal minds 
make the laws that govern these bodies, and cause 
the bodies to obey such laws. The laws framed by 
these mortal minds are called "laws of matter," 
"laws of hygiene," "health laws," etc. 

The supposititious human, mortal mind is by 
nature self-centered. Its nature is finite, inas- 
much as it is the opposite of the infinite nature of 

81 



THE DIARY OF 

divine Mind. It holds the belief that its existence 
depends upon its fleshly body, the body which it 
has itself formed out of its own thought. It be- 
lieves that it is in constant peril leSt disaster over- 
take this body ; and this fear becomes manifested 
on the body in sickness, decay, accidents, old age, 
and death. It holds the belief that there are minds 
many, other human minds like itself, each having 
a separate existence, and each likewise dependent 
upon a fleshly body for life and happiness. More- 
over, it believes that these minds can do one an- 
other mortal injury, and that it can itself be de- 
prived by its fellow-minds of all that it needs for 
its maintenance. It holds the correlated belief that 
it can improve its own Status at the expense of 
these other minds, and its short career is largely 
devoted to devising schemes for doing this. 
It declares that its life depends upon the body, 
upon a mental concept that is itself wholly erron- 
eous, and that cannot maintain even its own sup- 
positional existence. It makes this body, this mere 
thing of thought, its dependence in normal living, 
and the cause of moSt of its pleasures and ills. It 
refle6ts its fears to this body, and they become 
manifested there in disease. The body finally 
sinks under the unwarranted burden thus put 
upon it, and ultimately goes out in what mortals 
call death. The mind, finding that it cannot sus- 
tain its mental concept of body, believes that it 
dies when the body gives out, and its simulated 
activity then ceases and consciousness comes to an 
end. The thoughts forming the body disperse, 

82 



JEAN EVAETS 

and the body decays, disintegrates, and is no more. 

Since consciousness is the activity of thought, 
and mortals are conscious of the mental images 
which thought builds up within them, we mu§t 
conclude that upon the quality of thought entering 
the human consciousness depend all the phenom- 
ena of life and environment which the mortal ex- 
periences. True thought, based on real knowledge, 
builds up true mental concepts, that is, concepts 
of Truth, and therefore true concepts of the real 
Universe and Man. False thought does exactly 
the opposite. The human consciousness is a self- 
centered mass of erroneous thought, actively en- 
gaged in building up mental images and forming 
and maintaining an environment in which the 
mortal supposes himself to exiSl. This false 
thought in the human consciousness forms into a 
false concept of man, and this is the soul-and-body 
man, the mind-and-matter man, which is called a 
human being, or a mortal. 

True knowledge is based on Truth. Belief is 
based on supposition. The mortal consciousness 
holds beliefs of the existence of both good and 
evil, and it believes thoroughly in the power of 
evil. Indeed, its belief in the power of evil is as 
great, if not greater than its belief in the power 
of good. It seems to argue : "I see evil all about 
me, as well as good. Why should I not believe in 
the real existence of both?" And this it does in 
total ignorance of the Stupendous fa6l that all that 
it thinks it sees about it is nothing more than the 
externalization of its own thought within itself. 

83 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

We are beginning to grasp the great f a6t that 
no thought ever enters the mind without at once 
tending to become manifested in some form, either 
as action or as material obje6t. This is already so 
familiar to us that instances need not be enumer- 
ated. Thoughts of sickness constantly held will at 
length show themselves on the body in some form 
of disease. Our thought renting on some other 
person tends to become manifested in that per- 
son's experience. Our thoughts become external- 
ized in our environment, in our business, and in 
every one of the varied phenomena which go to 
make up what we call human life. We live, move, 
and have our being wholly on a mental plane. Our 
environment, our universe, no less than ourselves, 
are things of thought, and are absolutely subject 
to the thought that is directed toward them. 

ae. jfr jfc je. «ae. «u» jfc 

"7T "Jt* "A" TV" *7V* "TV" •?¥• 

"And, finally," he said, as he rose and Stood 
for a moment in the clear sunlight, his whole being 
shining, as it seemed to me, with the light of 
Truth, i ' remember that the thoughts you hold are 
seeds that you are planting within your mentality, 
and that they will bring forth fruit after their own 
kind, according to a law as invariable as the law 
which says that the corn which the farmer sows 
shall return again to him as corn. As is the qual- 
ity of your thought, so will be your health, your 
environment, your entire conscious experience. ' ' 



84 



MAY 17TH 



MAY 17TH 




Y mind was clouded and disturbed 
this morning, for if what he has 
already told me is true, only mor- 
tals experience sickness and sor- 
row. Therefore, I am mortal, and 
not a child of God. But if God 
did not create me, how did I come into being? 
This question had surged back and forth through 
my thought ever since he left me yesterday, and 
I knew that it mu§t be answered before I could 
hear the re&t of his message. 

While the trees Stirred lazily in the morning 
breeze, and great purpling shadows drifted slowly 
across the peaceful valley below, he led me, as I 
think the tender Jesus mu£t have led his anxious 
followers, out of the darkness and confusion of 
doubt into the warm sunlight of reality. How I 
know that his message is true, I cannot tell. But 
something within me responds to it — leaps out to 
meet it — and I am satisfied. 



That which is counterfeit cannot exi&t, even as 
such, unless the genuine fir§t exists. There mu§t 
be something to counterfeit. If a real dollar did 
not exi^t, there could be no counterfeit dollar. If 
the real Man did not exi£fc, there could be no 
counterfeit or ' ' sort of man, ' ' called mortal man. 
If there were no such thing as real music, there 
could be no discord. The genuine mu£t always 
precede the counterfeit. * 

87 



THE DIARY OF 

The genuine is based on Principle. The coun- 
terfeit is always without Principle. There are no 
rules for making a counterfeit dollar. The ap- 
parent power of such a dollar depends upon its 
being made as nearly like the genuine as possible. 
In the degree that it simulates the form, appear- 
ance, and characteristics of the genuine, does its 
power increase. But no rules, and no principle, 
can be formulated for making counterfeit dollars. 
They muSt seem to conform to the Standard upon 
which real dollars reSt, and they depend entirely 
on deception for their power. 

If we know a thing at all, it is because we 
know the principle by which it exists, and by 
which alone it can be explained. If we know Good, 
it is because we know the Principle which ex- 
plains it. If we can know evil, we muSt likewise 
know its rules, its principle, its laws. 

If we closely analyze our motives and result- 
ing condu6t we shall find that we base everything 
on our concept of principle. What is this prin- 
ciple on which we try to establish our existence 
and conscious experience? It is what we under- 
stand to be the Principle of Good. Our progress 
and happiness depend upon so ordering our con- 
du6t that it will conform to our conception of the 
Principle of Good, not of evil. We know that 
evil has no principle. It results when we are 
ignorant of Good, or when we voluntarily a6t in 
defiance of the Principle of Good. As darkness 
is not a thing of itself, but is only the supposed 
absence of light, so evil is not a thing of itself, 

88 



JEAN EVARTS 

but is only the suppositional absence of Good 
from the human consciousness. Who or what 
says that Good is absent from the human con- 
sciousness? The five physical senses. And what 
testimony do these afford? None whatever. The 
human mind sees, feels, tastes, smells, and hears 
nothing but its own mental concepts and thoughts. 
In other words, it holds thoughts of seeing, feel- 
ing, tasting, smelling, and hearing things, and 
this it calls obtaining evidence from the five ma- 
terial senses. The vibrations of pieces of nerve 
tissue would hardly be accepted as reliable testi- 
mony of anything in even a human court. 

Try as we may, we cannot understand errors 
of any kind. All we know of them is that they 
result from the incorre6t application of definite 
rules, or so-called principles. We know that Prin- 
ciple is eternal, and that any rules based upon it 
mu&t likewise be eternal and unaffe6ted by the 
mistakes we may make in trying to apply them. 

We know, further, that the Principle of Good 
is universal, everywhere present. The Binomial 
Theorem in mathematics exiSts as truly in the 
wilds of Africa as in the classroom. We become 
conscious of such a thing as the Binomial The- 
orem when our thought becomes a6tive with re- 
gard to it, or when thought of it becomes a<5tive 
in our mentalities, and that condition of con- 
sciousness may obtain as well in Africa as any- 
where else. We know only what enters oar minds 
and becomes aSiive there. But only thought can 
enter our minds. And the result of thought's 

89 



THE DIARY OF 

activity is * consciousness. Fir&t and la§t, how- 
ever, we are conscious only of thought, and the 
thought-images, or concepts, into which it forms. 

Evil seems to have real existence, and yet it 
eludes our grasp when once we try to define it. 
It may appear as discord in music, errors in 
mathematics or as inharmony in life. But dis- 
cordant music ceases to be music, erroneous math- 
ematics ceases to be mathematics, and inharmon- 
ious life ceases to be life. A false sense of a thing 
is not the thing itself. A false sense of anything 
is without a principle or real creator. The false 
sense of life which results in the material concept 
of man and the universe is without Principle, and 
there is, therefore, no basis upon which to explain 
it, either as to origin or its seeming existence. 
The a6tivity of the human consciousness is the 
activity of the opposite of real thought. It is the 
counterfeit of thought, for it simulates it in every 
respe6t. The human consciousness, or mortal 
mind, becomes, therefore, a false consciousness, 
or mind, and is consequently neither real con- 
sciousness nor real mind, nor the real likeness 
of these. 

Nor do mortals have minds of their own, as 
they think they have. Each mortal or human 
consciousness holds firmly the thought that it is 
an independent thinker, and that it can control 
its thought processes and think as it pleases. This 
is wholly false, notwithstanding that the human 
mind through its sense of will-power does appear 
to possess the ability to admit or exclude, to ac- 

90 



JEAN EVARTS 

cept or reje<5t, the thoughts that come to it — in 
other words, to believe them to be either real or 
unreal. In any case, it is a belief of mental a6tiv- 
ity, a simulation merely of the divine thought- 
modus, and not real thinking nor real mental 
a6tivity, wherein there is no speculation, no belief, 
but Truth only, expressed in true thought. The 
thoughts of the individual human mind come to 
it, and through no initiative of its own, even 
though we concede to it the faculty of placing 
itself in a receptive attitude toward those things 
in regard to which it wishes to think, for this 
faculty is a supposition, and the initiative to think 
along any certain line comes into the mind as a 
thought of thinking along that line, without the 
exertion of any real initiative or will-power inher- 
ent in the mind itself. The mind is supposed to 
say, "I think about this," when it is doing no 
thinking whatever. The true Statement would be, 
" There is the thought about this," and that 
thought may be classified as real or unreal, de- 
pending upon its origin. For false thought comes 
into the human mind from the mass of false 
thought constituting the communal mortal mind; 
and this thought, and the mind containing it, are 
the antitheses of real thought and the divine 
Mind. 

There is no real material tree outside of the 
human mind that a6ts as a Stimulus to thought. 
The process of cognizing a tree is wholly mental, 
and follows immediately upon the entry into the 
human mind of thoughts regarding "tree." This 

91 



THE DIARY OF 

train of thought is Stimulated by a sense-impres- 
sion of a real Idea, which is interpreted by the 
human mentality as a material tree. But the 
Stimulus is an idea; and the resulting process, 
ending with the externalization within the human 
consciousness of its concept of this idea, and its 
positing of this externalized concept as a material 
obje6t, is, from firSt to laSt, wholly mental. We 
have no process whereby we can deliberately 
make thoughts. Neither philosopher, scientist, 
nor physician has ever discovered a formula 
which will produce them. They are not i ' secreted 
by the brain," nor manufactured in the human 
mentality. There is but one source of true thought, 
infinite Mind — and but one source of material 
thought, the communal mortal mind, unreal and 
transitory, the supposititious simulation of the 
Infinite. 

Only in recent years have men been awaking 
to the great fa6t that real thoughts are things, 
even though invisible and intangible to the five 
physical senses, and that we exist in a vaSt ocean 
of thought, which surges in and through our men- 
talities, and which, in some mysterious way, is 
seized upon by the human mind and built up into 
concepts. The fa6t is, that in reality it is not 
seized upon by the human mind at all, but that 
the very a6livity of this thought itself constitutes 
the human mentality. A self-centered mass of 
material thought, a6tively working and building 
up mental images, constitutes the human mind. 
Material thoughts, the thoughts of the human so - 
92 



JEAN EVARTS 

called mind, are not things, but are symbols or 
interpretations of realities to this mind. All so- 
called l i outer experience ? ' is the fruit of thought ; 
and the seed always bears fruit after its own kind. 
The way the universe will look to a human being 
depends upon what kind of thought is building its 
images. As is the sense-perception or awareness 
of substance, mind, and life, so will be the inter- 
pretation of these things in the thought that is 
a6Uve in the human consciousness. The human 
mentality receives a sense-impression to the ef- 
fect that such things as substance, mind, and life 
exi£t. It then interprets its awareness of this 
sense-impression, the interpretation being guided 
very largely by education and pa§t experience, 
human opinions, and speculation. The result is 
its universe, a proje6tion of the concept of exist- 
ence which it believes it gets through the five 
physical senses. If the mentality holds thoughts 
of evil, presently it will see evil manifested in its 
own experience or environment, or perhaps in 
some other person. In any case, however, it is 
seeing only the externalization of the thought 
within itself. Men believe only what they see; 
and yet their lives depend wholly upon things 
that they do not see. 

Are mortals fallen men? Was man originally 
created perfe6t, and did he afterwards sin and 
fall from his high estate? 

No, there is no such thing as a fallen man. 
Man, the image and likeness of infinite Mind, is, 
in a sense, a<5tually formed and made up of this 

93 



THE DIARY OF 

Mind's thought. He is the idea of divine Mind, 
and he could no more fall than could divine Mind 
itself. Man being created perfe6t, could never be 
less than perfe6t while divine Mind retained its 
integrity. If Man has fallen, it muSt be that his 
Principle, God, fir&t fell, for Man is but the image 
and likeness of his Creator. If God can fall, or 
can manifest evil, sin, sickness, or death, then Man 
not only can, but muSt d© likewise, for we cannot 
attribute any characteristic or quality to Man that 
is not a characteristic or quality of his Principle, 
divine Mind. The counterfeit dollar cannot be 
called a fallen dollar. It never was a real dollar. 
Discords cannot be called fallen music, for they 
never were real music. That which is real and 
perfe6t muSt ever remain so. It is only the unreal 
and counterfeit that can change — and its very lack 
of Principle requires that it should change con- 
stantly, in order to simulate as closely as possible 
the real. 

We have seen in a measure what the real Man 
is. The mortal man is the opposite. We have seen 
how he originates, how he is a counterfeit, a bur- 
lesque of the real Man. Mortal man did not fall, 
for he never was perfe6t. He was not created by 
infinite Mind, nor was the communal mortal mind 
in which he originates created by infinite Mind. 
This communal mortal mind is the suppositional 
opposite of real Mind, and is therefore without 
real existence. Whatever existence it may seem 
to have is a counterfeit, a simulation, of the real 
existence of divine Mind. 

94 



JEAN EVARTS 

Yet, the communal mortal mind could not have 
even the appearance of real existence were it not 
for the real Mind. To understand this we muSt 
remember that whatever is real manifests its 
reality by comparison with that, the reality or un- 
reality of which we are attempting to establish. 
The process by which Truth establishes its claims 
is simply a "showing up" of the falsity of that 
which opposes it. The solution of even the sim- 
plest mathematical problem is the overcoming of 
suppositional error. Were it not for Truth, error 
could not be known, even as such. We may say 
that the suppositional, or unreal, is Stirred up, or 
moved, by the real, and it is to this extent only 
that the real gives it whatever existence it may 
seem to have. It is in this way that the origin of 
evil may seem to be attributed to God, for without 
the existence of God there could be no evil, and 
therefore evil really owes its existence to Him. 
The shadow owes its existence to the real object; 
and yet the obje6t cannot be held responsible for 
having created the shadow. The theory of i ' sup- 
positional opposites," as announced in the revela- 
tion up to which we are leading, demands that 
Good be supposed to have an opposite. It is this 
opposite that is called evil. 

It muSt be remembered that in this discussion 
we are dealing only with mental things, and that 
such things cannot be regarded in the same way 
that we regard so-called material objects. We 
may say that a block of wood has no opposite ; and 
yet, mentally, an opposite may be supposed or 

95 



THE DIARY OF 

predicated for every quality that the block is 
thought to have. If the human mind should 
change its beliefs regarding the block of wood, and 
should accept these predicated opposites as reali- 
ties, and should conform its action to this change 
of thought, its whole conscious existence would 
be altered. 

W "7T •?¥• W *3v" TF 

"The activity of real thought," he concluded, 
"constitutes the spiritual consciousness, which is 
Man. Real thought is based upon absolute know- 
ing. There is, therefore, nothing in the world so 
important, so vitally important to us as real 
knowledge. Real knowledge is founded on Truth, 
and is the knowledge of God as supreme Good. 
The teSt of knowledge is demonstration, a6tual 
proof. You can begin this demonstration at once, 
by taking the infinitude of God as your major 
premise, and bending every thought to it, gauging 
every mental a6tion by it as the supreme 
standard. ' ' 

For a long time after he had gone I sat turn- 
ing this over in my mind. If I am not a child of 
God, Good, I muSt be a child of His opposite, evil 
— there is no alternative. But evil has only a sup- 
positional existence, for it is but the externaliza- 
tion of evil thought held in the human conscious- 
ness. Then his words of yeSterday came to me : 
"As you think, so will be your conscious exist- 
ence." And as the sun sank behind the distant 
hills and the day drew softly to a close, I made 

96 



JEAN EVARTS 

the resolve that henceforth the direction of my 
thought should be upward, and that no thought 
that did not bear the Stamp of reality should find 
an entrance into my mind. 



97 



MAY 18TH 



MAY 18TH 




OU have asked why it is," he be- 
gan this morning, ' ' that you seem 
to have two natures, one always 
voicing good, the other evil." 



This is the familiar question of the "dual 
nature" of man. We have said that the mortal 
man does not think independently. Nor does the 
real Man. For, if God is infinite Mind, He is the 
only Mind, and therefore the only real thinker. 
His mental a6tivity forms the ideas which consti- 
tute the Creation and the real Man. It is the 
activity of His thought that constitutes the spirit- 
ual consciousness, the consciousness of spiritual 
things only, a consciousness into which no mater- 
iality ever enters. Such a consciousness is real 
Man. So, in a very real sense, it is the thought 
that makes the man. This thought-man will ex- 
press varying degrees of existence, depending 
upon how greatly his constituent thought departs 
from the real. 

The human personality is never fixed. Being 
without Principle, it is without any Standard to 
which it muSt conform, and it therefore manifests 
its constantly changing concept of the real Man. 
As its desires, hopes, fears, and beliefs change, so 
the personality of mortal man changes, bringing 
out the fruits of its varying mental a6tivity. The 
human mind lives in a world of voices, and it is 
constantly hearing "mental suggestions," which 
it classifies as either good or bad. These it be- 

101 



THE DIARY OF 

lieves to come from its dual nature, its higher and 
lower selves, constituting the conscious and the 
sub-conscious portions of its mentality. It believes 
that the sub-conscious portion of the human mind 
is a Storehouse of unlimited powers, of which it 
can avail itself through the exercise of the human 
will. By the exercise of this will it has succeeded 
in throwing off some of the trammels of dogma 
and religious superstition ; but in its larger sense 
of freedom resulting therefrom it has fallen into 
the error of exalting the human sense of mind and 
the personal Ego, and is as far from the true 
sense of Power as inherent in divine Mind, God, 
as before it made the discovery of its own so- 
called dual nature. It has only repeated the famil- 
iar process of exchanging one set of human beliefs 
for another. 

There is no thinking but right thinking. Any 
mental process muSt be based upon reality if it is 
to rise to the Standard of real thinking. The re- 
sults of such mental process, or thinking, muSt be 
demonstrable, for all truth is susceptible of rigid 
proof. The mental processes of a mortal may be 
very complicated, and there may be the thought 
within his mentality that he is doing very genuine 
thinking; and yet these mental processes may not 
constitute real thought at all. Since matter is the 
opposite of Spirit, it follows that a series of pic- 
tures of material things passing before the mind 
does not constitute thinking, but rather false 
thinking, or a belief of thinking. It is no more 
real thinking than looking at moving pi6tures on 

102 



JEAN EVARTS 

a screen is a perception of reality. The human 
mind that speculates and guesses is not really 
thinking, however much it may believe it is, for 
speculation is not based upon real knowledge, but 
is the antipode of Truth. Real thought comes 
from the one thinker, God. Transitory, specula- 
tive thought comes from the suppositional oppo- 
site of God, the communal mortal mind. As real 
thought within real consciousness constitutes real 
Man, so false thought within false consciousness 
constitutes mortal man. It is therefore true that 
as a man thinketh, so is he. 

Am I mortal, or am I immortal? Am I a child 
of God? If not, what am I? 

The answer depends upon which "I" is asking 
the question. There is the true "I," the image 
and likeness of infinite Mind — and there is its 
suppositional opposite, the unreal "I," the image 
and likeness of Mind's opposite, the communal 
mortal mind. The "I" that -voices the thought 
that it is the son of God, His spiritual image and 
likeness, the perfe6t reflection of infinite Mind, is 
the genuine, which lies back of and seems to be 
obscured by the "I" that counterfeits it, and that 
voices the unreal thoughts of matter, disease, and 
evil. The real "I" is never for a moment obscured 
or clouded, and its seeming obscuring is to the 
mortal consciousness only, a consciousness so 
filled with its own false concepts that it cannot see 
the reality that they seem to counterfeit. At times 
the voice of the real "I" is heard. At other times 
the voice of the unreal "I" seems to be heard. 

103 



THE DIARY OF 

The real "I" expresses itself in goodness and 
love. The other "I" expresses itself in evil and 
hatred. There is no real "dual nature" of man. 
There is only the true, spiritual nature of the real 
Man, sharply distinguished and separated from 
its suppositional opposite, the mortal nature of 
the human so-called man. 

The human mind is unable to distinguish 
clearly between the real and the unreal, and it 
concludes that it is itself a mixture of good and 
evil, of soul and body, of mind and matter, capable 
of the greatest good, and yet, at the same time, 
capable of the greatest evil. Truly, a fountain 
sending forth both sweet and bitter water ! 

The mortal believes that he thinks. But if 
God is infinite Mind, He muSt be the only thinker. 
Therefore, the mortal man's belief that he thinks 
is but a belief. There is no independent thinker 
but God. 

The mortal consciousness, containing as it 
does the elements of discord and decay, which are 
the beliefs of those things, is for that very reason 
self-deStru6tive, as is all error, and sooner or later 
muSt pass away in death. At beSt, its span of ex- 
istence is short, and its activities during the few 
years of its existence are of little permanent 
value. It cannot save itself, despite its boaSted 
progress along material lines, nor can it be saved 
as mortal mind. This would be an utter impossi- 
bility. There are no elements within mortality 
that can prevent its own deStru6tion. By its very 
nature it is doomed. The testimony which the 

104 



JEAN EVARTS 

so-called senses are supposed to afford the mind, 
and which constitutes the very existence of the 
mind, is never testimony of absolute Truth, and 
therefore is no testimony at all. Whatever it may 
believe its progress to be, the human mind, un- 
aided, is no nearer the absolute Truth of Being 
today than it was thousands of years ago. Men 
are apparently no nearer a knowledge of the 
Absolute which lies back of the relative, material 
phenomena of this human life than they were at 
the dawn of history. Of effe6t and phenomena, 
men know much in a seemingly practical way ; of 
absolute Cause, nothing. They forget that in their 
daily round of existence they are dealing almost 
wholly with phenomena, material appearances, 
shadows, relative truths, and that they are appar- 
ently no nearer eradicating sickness and death 
from existence, no nearer reaching immortality 
and the boundless bliss which they have always 
sought in materiality, than they were when the 
mythical Adam fir&t attempted the dubious mix- 
ing of evil with good. 

Not only is the mortal mind self-de£tru6tive, 
but, contrary to popular belief, it does not supply 
one iota of even that which the material man 
seems to need for his comfort and happiness. 
Were Good, Truth, Principle, suddenly with- 
drawn, this seemingly solid, material world would 
instantly collapse and vanish into nothingness. 
Not a single particle of what men need and really 
desire is material, or comes from mortal mind, or 
through the five so-called physical senses. God is 

105 



THE DIARY OF 

what all men are driving for, even though they 
think of the end to be attained as satisfaction, 
substance, joy, comfort, riches, happiness, and 
love. They are seeking Good, even though their 
poncept of Good and that which gives real satis- 
faction may not be the true one. Yet God is Truth, 
He is Love, He is Sub&fcance, and He is the source 
of all comfort and satisfaction and abundance and 
joy— and all of these things, yes, every one of 
them, is wholly mental, or a mental State. There 
is not one iota of materiality in any one of the 
things that men long for and know to be really 
worth while. Ideas of Right, and Ju&tice, and 
Good permeate everywhere and everything, even 
though seemingly obscured by false beliefs and 
material thought, and without them even this 
world of matter would cease to be, for the coun- 
terfeit, the opposite of reality, depends absolutely 
upon the existence of the genuine. Every bit of 
the bounty of Nature, its beauty and grandeur, 
comes from God. He is the source of all the mor- 
tal man's supply; and this supply comes not from 
matter nor because of it, but in spite of it. If 
mortals were not at all influenced or controlled by 
the divine Mind, they would never manifest even 
the semblance of harmony, but would be continu- 
ally diseased, Starved, and frozen, for uncon- 
trolled mortal mind by its very nature can pro- 
duce only evil. This it mu&l do, for it is without 
Principle, without any basis of reality or Truth. 
In answer to the question, How did evil origi- 
nate? we may say that if God is infinite Good 

106 



JEAN EVARTS 

there can be no evil, and the question is answered 
by this simple Statement of fa6t. But the human 
mind is not willing to sweep evil out of existence 
in such a peremptory manner. Yet the human 
miud does not recognize the implications in this 
question itself, for this question is one of the very 
means whereby evil continues to deceive mortals. 
It assumes the real existence of evil; and to un- 
dertake to answer it is, in a measure, to assert 
the reality of evil. If evil is not real, this question 
is an assumption of the "somethingness" of noth- 
ing, and is very much like asking "who made that 
which does not exiSt?" 

For evil exists nowhere but in the human con- 
sciousness. The human mentality is its origin 
and habitat. Evil is the sense of evil; it is the 
thought of evil; it is thought and belief of the 
existence of that which is opposed to Good. Being 
the opposite of Good, it is all that denies the 
goodness and allness of God. It is a sense of life, 
power, and intelligence in matter, or in something 
apart from God. It is an imperfect, false, dis- 
cordant, mortal, material, sinful sense of that 
which is in reality good, immortal, and perfect 
It is a misinterpretation of divine Mind and the 
Ideas through and by which this Mind is mani- 
fested. It is a false sense of God, the Universe 
and Man. 

As manifested to mortals, evil is the direct 
result of holding certain so-called thoughts in the 
human mentality. Sin, sickness, accident, dis- 
aster, failure, decay, and death, as manifested in 

107 



THE DIARY OF 

the physical universe, are as dire6tly the result of 
such thoughts being held in the human mentality 
as 4 is the result of adding 2 and 2. While the 
false concepts of God and Man remain in the 
human mentality they will be externalized in hu- 
man experience in discord and disease and death. 
Evil can find no place in real Being, for it is 
the opposite of that which is real, or good. God, 
who is infinite Good, cannot know or behold evil. 
Neither can the real, spiritual consciousness, 
which is the true Man. It is ju&t as impossible to 
really know evil as to really know that 2+2=7, 
for evil cannot be reduced to any principle, rule, 
or laiv, and there is nothing given or known by 
ivhich it can be explained or understood. The 
human mind holds the belief that there is a power 
opposed to Good, and the result of this belief held 
within the human mentality is the varied mani- 
festation within the human consciousness of that 
which is called evil. As every creation or idea of 
infinite Mind has its antipode, or counterfeit, or 
opposite, in some material belief, so evil is found 
assuming, or seeming to assume, all the powers 
and attributes of infinite Good, and posing in such 
a way that it may be accepted as Good by the 
human mind. Not that evil has any intelligence 
or power whatsoever, for it is without intelli- 
gence, without any power to manifest activity of 
any sort. What charaSteriSlics it may seem to 
have are given it by the human mind; and it owes 
its entire existence to the human mentality, and 
to nothing else. 

108 



JEAN EVARTS 

Since evil is undirected by any intelligent 
power, and therefore is never the manifestation 
of a definite purpose, it is that which "happens." 
And it is thus that it seems to be manifested to 
the human consciousness as accident, failure, loss, 
sickness, and death. The basis of the theory of 
the dual nature of man is the apparent conscious- 
ness of good and evil, of Spirit and matter. But 
such a consciousness does not result from true 
knowledge of an a<5tual duality, but is a mere 
dream State of mind — a State of not being awake 
to the Truth. As long as the human mind con- 
tinues to hold thoughts of power apart from 
divine Mind, as long as the human mentality con- 
tinues to cling to thoughts of evil, of sin, sickness, 
and death, to thoughts of life in matter, and to all 
the brood of dark thought-antipodes which infeSt 
its consciousness, juSt so long will evil be mani- 
fested in this consciousness in all its ugly guises, 
despite the mortal's cries to God for help, despite 
his appeals to do6tors and preachers, and despite 
his apparent success in ferreting out the microbes 
of disease and coneo6ting antitoxins to deStroy 
them. 

The prophet put his finger on the difficulty 
ages ago when he cried, ' i Thy w^ay and thy doings 
have procured these things unto thee ! ' ' For the 
evil thoughts of men were manifested in such ter- 
rible ways that the prophet Isaiah voiced it in 
words which have rung down through the centur- 
ies: "The show of their countenance doth witness 

109 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVAETS 

againSt them; and they declare their sin as 
Sodom, they hide it not!" 

"Hear, earth," warned Jeremiah, "behold 
I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit 
of their thoughts ! ' ' 

"How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge 
within thee?" How long, human consciousness, 
for ju£t so long wilt thou continue to sicken and 
suffer and die ! 



no 



MAY 19TH 



MAY 19TH 




AM going to anticipate a question 
this morning/ ' said my friend, 
seating himself beside me; "a 
question which I am sure has been 
suggested by our talk of yester- 
day. We have said that God, be- 
ing infinite, muSt be all-inclusive. Nothing can 
exi^t apart from, outside of, or beyond Him. If 
a thing has existence at all, it exists within the 
Mind we call God. We have also said that mor- 
tals are the product of false beliefs. How, then, 
are we going to reconcile these Statements? If 
God is all-inclusive, does it not follow that He in- 
cludes these beliefs? False though they may be, 
they are nevertheless seemingly mental things, 
and as such apparently mu&t be included within 
an all-embracing Mind. In other words, if God is 
all, does it not follow that He includes mortals, 
and, therefore, evil?" 



God is all-inclusive, and He includes all that is 
real. If mortals are real, they are included within 
infinite Mind. 

The Statement that 2+2=7 is not a Statement 
of Truth. Yet, as a mere Statement, even of fals- 
ity, it can seem to exiSt in my thought, and there- 
fore within my mentality. I may seem to receive 
this Statement from some other person, and to 
that extent the Statement may enter my mentality. 
But it does not follow that I see it as a Statement 
of Truth. The Statement is in my thought simply 

113 



THE DIARY OF 

as a Statement. I do not recognize it as fa6t, for 
I know the fa6t to be that 2+2=4. Therefore, 
this erroneous Statement, the opposite of Truth, 
does not influence me. In other words, as regards 
this case, I do not see evil, but only the good. The 
evil is a supposition, a misstatement. Thousands 
might believe that 2+2=7, but that belief could 
not af£e6t me, for I know the truth. The elements 
of this entire case are all present in my mentality, 
but I put them together according to the Principle 
of Addition, and so obtain the corre6t solution. 
Knowing the truth in this case, it is utterly im- 
possible for me to know the error, its opposite 
unreality. 

Extending this case indefinitely, I may say 
that if my mentality were filled with the truth re- 
garding all things, I could never recognize error 
of any sort. 

Now God is infinite Mind, and is the Truth re- 
garding all things. As the Creator of all that is, 
He not only knows the truth about all things, but 
He himself is the Truth regarding everything 
that is or can be, and so He cannot recognize 
error, the opposite of Truth, excepting to know 
that it is error, and, therefore, like mathematical 
errors in the light of Principle, simply nothing. 
The Statement that ' ' He is of eyes too pure to be- 
hold evil," means juSt this. Not that He is so 
pure that He looks away from evil with loathing ; 
but that, being infinite Truth himself, He knows 
that there can be no opposite to himself, and 
therefore no error. He does not see error, even 

114 



JEAN EVARTS 

as such, simply because error has no real exist- 
ence. God knows himself, Truth, and He knows 
that the only claim of existence that evil can have 
is the suppositional existence of the exa6t opposite 
of Truth. He could not recognize evil as a real 
thing, as something having real existence, al- 
though apart from Him, for that would mean that 
He was not infinite, and that He muSt acknowl- 
edge the existence of another power than himself. 
The existence which evil has is exa6tly the same 
as the existence which the Statement 2+2=7 has 
— none whatever, a suppositional existence, de- 
pending upon ignorance or false belief for even 
its seeming reality. Mortals know this fa<5t to a 
slight degree, for they have many proofs that evil 
has only the power that they are willing to give it. 
And as they come into a larger knowledge of God 
as infinite Truth, infinite Good, they see more and 
more the fa6ts regarding things, and less and less 
the opposite errors. As they do this, the errors 
disappear. 

Evil muSt have support for its claims to exist- 
ence. It cannot Stand alone. Unless supported 
by faith, it falls. The Statement that 2+2=7 does 
not exiSt in true thought, and to that extent is 
really unthinkable, unknowable. It depends for 
acceptance upon belief, and the only existence it 
can even seem to have is the existence that the 
human consciousness has that can hold this and 
similar falsities as concepts of truth. As long as 
the human consciousness believes a thing, it is in- 
fluenced by that belief. As long as mortals be- 
ns 



THE DIARY OF 

lieve that things hurt them, they experience the 
effeSis of their beliefs. To fear a thing is to fall 
into its seeming power. As long as we fear a 
thing, it continues' to hold us. As long as we fear 
disease, loss, failure, and death, these will come 
upon us. They are only the logical manifestations 
of the thoughts we hold. Even on the material 
plane of thought, it is the fearless who succeed. 
Success is proportionate to a lack of the sense of 
limitation. God recognizes no fear, no error, no 
limitation. He is unlimited. 

Where is the mortal who holds false beliefs? 
Or where are the beliefs that constitute a mortal 
consciousness? 

If they have any existence at all, they are in 
infinite Mind. But if they exi&t there they can do 
so only as realities, for God is Truth. A belief, 
in order to exiSt in infinite Mind, mu£t cease to be 
a belief, and mu£t become a fa<5t. God does not 
hold beliefs; He does not believe; He knows. 

That which is true is eternal. The real is that 
which endures forever. So, if mortal man is in 
infinite Mind, he is eternal, and will endure for- 
ever. But to exi^b in perfe6t Mind, mortal man 
would have to be perfe6t. He could never mani- 
fest anything that was not real and good, for 
whatever exists in infinite Good can only be good 
itself. 

But this contradi6ts the fa6ts as we seem to 
see them. Mortal man is very far from perfe6t 
and eternal. We see him diseased and dying 
everywhere. He cannot exi&t in infinite Good. 

116 



JEAN EVARTS 

And as infinite Good is all, it logically follows that 
the mortal man does not exi&t. 

This seems to reason him right out of exist- 
ence, and on our working hypothesis of the infini- 
tude of God, it does. The existence of mortal man, 
and of all evil, and all that is opposed to Good, is 
a suppositional, unreal existence, the produ6t of 
thought that is the opposite of real thought, and 
therefore that is but supposition. To what does 
the mortal man seem real? To himself only. In 
other words, mortal thought seems real only to 
the mortal thought that seems to say, "I am 
real." It is the false thought itself that expresses 
itself in this way. And it expresses itself to itself 
only. 

We mu&t remember that we are dealing with 
everything now on a mental basis, and that 
thoughts are realities, real things, and that it is 
possible in our mental processes to suppose an 
opposite to everything that is real. Therefore, 
every real thought, whatever that thought may 
be, can be supposed to admit of an opposite. The 
thought being real, the opposite mu£t be unreal. 
The opposite of real thought is the thought 
that seems to say, "I, too, am real; and there is 
both good and evil in the world, and God made 
them both. ' ' When you ask where such thoughts 
exiSt, I can only say that their existence is sup- 
positional. They seem real only to thought of 
like nature that is receptive to them. Unreal 
thought can influence only thought that is recep- 

117 



THE DIAEY OF 

tive to it, and such thought mu&t likewise be un- 
real, for Truth is never influenced by error. 

God does not recognize error, even as error. 
He could not recognize the "somethingness" of 
nothing. And when we say that God does not 
recognize evil, excepting to know that it is 
nothing, we mu&t be sure we understand this in 
the right way. It means that God does not recog- 
nize error in any way, for Truth cannot take cog- 
nizance of anything but Truth. And as Truth is 
infinite, there can be nothing else to take cogniz- 
ance of. The mistake of the ages has been the 
attempt to bury mind in matter, and to make 
something of evil. The mortal man insiSls that 
evil has a real entity; and he has struggled with 
this man of Straw since the beginning of things 
material, in a vain attempt to prove it to be some- 
thing, and then to overcome it on the basis of its 
proven reality. With equal success might we 
Struggle with the shadow which a tree ca&ts in the 
sunlight, in the vain effort to prove it to be some- 
thing real and to reduce it to definite rules of 
being, in order that later we might overcome it 
and put it out of existence. Evil will never be re- 
duced to nothingness on the basis of its being a 
reality. A real thing is forever real, and is in- 
cluded in infinite Mind. If we admit the reality 
of evil, whether it be in the form of sin, sickness, 
or death, we but wa&te our energies in attempts 
to overcome it, for we might just as well attempt 
the destruction of the truth of the Multiplication 
Table. Evil in the human consciousness will be 

118 



JEAN EVARTS 

overcome only when the nothingness, the unreal- 
ity, of evil is recognized. 

The Statement that 2+2=7 is utterly opposed 
to the truth that 2+2=4, and yet it may seem to 
have existence. These two Statements, as mere 
Statements, may be supposed to exiSt in the human 
mentality at the same time. But they cannot exiSt 
there as Statements of Truth. Being opposites, 
one muSt be true and the other false. The human 
mind will accept one of these Statements as true, 
and the other as false, and which one will be re- 
tained and which rejected may depend upon the 
human mind's previous training and education, 
or upon popular opinion, belief, etc. Yet, even if 
the human mind should accept as true the State- 
ment that 2+2=7, this Statement would Still be 
unreal and without existence, for its suppositional 
existence depends entirely upon the human men- 
tality that holds it ; and this mentality, by its very 
acceptance of such Statements as Statements of 
fa6t, thus shows that it is itself false, and there- 
fore that its existence is unreal. In reality, 2+2 
=7 cannot exiSt at all. Nor can such a Statement 
even be made. The beSt we can do is to say that 
the mere suppositional Statement of 2+2=7 may 
be regarded as the antithesis of the fa<5t that 2+2 
=4, for the real Man could not reflect Statements 
of error, and the mortal man is himself as false as 
the erroneous Statement that we are trying to 
suppose him to hold. 

It is juSt so, only on a very much larger and 
more complex scale, with the fa6ts of Being. Be- 

119 



THE DIARY OF 

cause the mental processes by which mortal man 
is formed seem so complicated, and the realm of 
thought is such an unknown and unexplored 
region, we find it difficult to accept these things. 
Mortal man muSt of necessity seem complicated, 
for he is the counterfeit of the real Man, and the 
real man is a reflection of infinite complexity, a 
complexity only in the sense of including every- 
thing, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, and 
not a complexity in the sense of being confused 
or discordant. A misstatement of the Truth of 
Being, regardless of what form that misstate- 
ment may assume, is juSt as much an error as to 
say that 2+2=7. The resulting complexity of 
error, however, seems greater; although we can- 
not conceive what a complex result the universal 
acceptance of the Statement that 2+2=7 might 
have. But we do know that if this were accepted, 
the calculations of the whole world would have to 
be changed. The results following the world's 
acceptance of a single error are incalculable. 

In your dreams you are an unreal self in an 
unreal environment. You believe that things are 
very real while you are dreaming ; but you recog- 
nize their unreality when you wake to what you 
believe to be real existence. What constitutes the 
difference between your dreams and your waking 
existence? Simply this, that your dreams are 
wholly unrelated to Principle, and are therefore 
chaotic and impossible. Your waking existence 
would be juSt as chaotic and impossible, were it 
not that to a degree it is related to Principle, God. 

120 



JEAN EVARTS 

For, as Slated some time ago, it is only the pres- 
ence of Principle in this universe of mortal man, 
despite its materiality and false beliefs, that pre- 
vents it from flying into nothingness, juSt as your 
dreams do when you wake. Everything in your 
a aking experience that is not related to Principle 
is chaotic and unreal, as unreal as are your 
dreams. What becomes of your dream when you 
wake ? The same that happens to all that is unreal 
in our waking dream of existence when we learn 
the Truth — it disappears. If it were based on 
Principle, and therefore real, it could not dis- 
appear. 

When you ask, Who is doing the supposing 
with regard to existence? since the mortal man's 
existence is suppositional, we muSt answer that 
the unreal thought itself forms into the question, 
"Who made me?" In other words, this thought- 
que&tion comes into the human mentality from the 
source of material thought, the communal mortal 
mind — and we know that the communal mortal 
mind is but a name under which we include all 
the suppositional thought-a6tivity that seems to 
be the opposite of divine Mind, God. If there 
comes into the mentality the real thought, "God 
made all things, ' ' there will very likely come with 
it its suppositional opposite, unreal thought, 
namely, "Who made me?" Remember that we 
are dealing with thought, and the centers of 
thought-a6tivity, or mentalities. Thoughts come 
into mentality from some source without, and 
they frame into all possible sorts of Statements 

121 



THE DIARY OF 

and questions. This Stream of mixed real and 
suppositional thought is flowing into and through 
our mentalities constantly, and gives rise to the 
"Stream of consciousness " that psychologists 
dwell on at such lengths in their various text 
hooks. Every real thought has its suppositional 
opposite, and the human mind has to be educated 
to distinguish between the real and the unreal. 
Until it can do so, it experiences a manifestation 
of mixed good and evil, the degree of harmony in 
which depends upon the predominance of Truth 
or error in the mentality. 

Keep these f a<5ts before you : You are a men- 
tality, a consciousness. You are no more in a 
physical body than you are in any material obje6t 
you may think you see in space about you. As a 
consciousness, your life is your conscious exist- 
ence. It is made up of the things and experiences 
yoa are conscious of. Consciousness is mental 
activity, the activity of thought. A false con- 
sciousness is the result of the a<5tivity of false 
thought. Thoughts form into mental concepts, 
and these concepts are arranged into forms and 
positions in consciousness and become to us our 
environment, our universe. Our bodies are as 
much mental concepts as the world we think we 
see about us. The body exiSts within the con- 
sciousness, juSt as do all the obje6ts with which 
we think we have to do in our daily life. It would 
have no more sensation or life than a Stone, were 
it not that we have come to believe that our life 
depends upon it and is centered in it. We are 

122 



JEAN EVABTS 

neither in nor of the body, any more than we are 
in or of material objects about us. The body is 
within the consciousness, and its nature is en- 
tirely mental. 

Consciousness that is made up of real thought- 
activity is real consciousness. Consciousness that 
is made up of the suppositional activity of unreal 
thought is unreal consciousness. Each kind brings 
out the fruits of its own thinking. The mortal 
consciousness, or man, is the man referred to in 
the book of Job, where we read, ' ' Cease ye from 
man whose breath is in his nostrils, for whereof 
is he to be accounted?" 

He is not to be accounted for at all, for he is 
a myth. 

The mortal man and the physical universe are 
supposed to be governed by laws, which are called 
' 6 laws of matter. ' ' There is much speculation re- 
garding these so-called laws, and the human mind 
has spent much time in their investigation. Natur- 
ally, it is of great importance to us that we should 
know whence they come; and yet, when we at- 
tempt to discover their origin we find ourselves 
lo£t in the mi&ts of obscurity that cloud the cen- 
turies. Law has been well defined as "the ulti- 
mate and final authority, able to enforce its will. ' ' 
But whose authority do "laws of matter " en- 
force? 

If we press back along the line of material 
evolution, according to the " Darwinian, ' ' or De- 
velopment Theory, we finally arrive at the fir&t 
human being, whom the world knows as Adam. 

123 



THE DIARY OF 

But here we Slop, for the historicity of the man 
Adam cannot be established. According to the 
Bible, he was the offspring of God, but his con- 
duct resulted in alienating him from his Creator, 
and we later find him no longer recognized as 
such. That infinite Mind could create anything 
as imperfe6t as the man, Adam, and then State 
that he had been made in His image and likeness, 
is unthinkable. Even more, from the nature of 
God as Good, it is simply impossible. We muSt 
conclude that the Adam Story is a myth, an alle- 
gory, a fable. 

And here we end, for here human hiStory is 
supposed to find its source, in the Adam Story. 
Here material man and the laws that govern him 
Start, in myth. A myth is an unreality, nothing- 
ness. It is unreality, nothingness, therefore, that 
demands the mortal's obedience to human laws of 
the body, or matter. But, disregarding this and 
accepting the conclusions of the leading physicists 
of our day, the so-called "laws of matter" can be 
nothing more than laws of "superimposed layers 
of positive and negative ele6tricity. " It is such 
laws that the human consciousness has bowed 
down to and accepted as the "final authority, able 
to enforce its will." 

Nor is all this "confusion worse confounded," 
for these things that we have been discussing are 
all developments from that revelation to which 
we are approaching, and which, as a revelation of 
Truth, is being found to Stand the teSt of rigid 
demonstration, in so far as it is understood and 

124 



JEAN EVAETS 

intelligently applied. Already it has been proved 
sufficiently to establish its truth as a whole, and is 
daily being proved in some degree by those who 
have reached at lea&t a partial understanding of 
its infinite Principle, and who are loyally and 
honestly putting it to the proof. 

"JS* W W «B" •7s* •«• W 

"It is as old as the foundations of the uni- 
verse, ' ' he said. ' ' The world has known it in part, 
and forgotten it again — jui§t as it has forgotten 
the spiritual import of Paul's wonderful State- 
ment of Truth: 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, 
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance: against such there 
is no law. ' As Truth, it has always been present, 
and in some degree it has always been recognized. 
But we have had to be reminded of it many times. 
Tomorrow we shall talk about the greatest of 
those who have put us in remembrance of these 
things — the one who revealed God to us as in- 
finite Love." 



125 



MAY 20TH 




MAY 20TH 

HEN I awoke this morning my 
whole being sprang forth to meet 
the day. I knew that a change had 
come over me. The room was 
ablaze with sunlight, and the cur- 
tains were waving a greeting to 
me in the cool spring breeze that came through 
the open window. Such sleep, and such a feeling 
of Strength and life, I had not known since child- 
hood! I could scarcely wait for breakfast, so 
eager was I to get out into the glorious morning, 
to join with the birds in their songs of happiness, 
and to revel in the wonderful life and gladness 
that was all about me. I almost flew to the ledge, 
for I wanted to be there to greet him when he 
came. I did not know I had such Strength ! The 
old pain and weariness seemed to have lifted and 
left me young again. I felt as if for years I had 
been in a dream. 

Then something began to dawn upon my 
wakened thought. The cough — I wondered that 
I had not missed it. But surely it was gone — had 
been gone for days ! And my renewed Strength, 
my new sense of life — these had Stolen in so 
quietly upon my absorbed thought, and the old 
discords had faded away so gradually, that I had 
only now become conscious of a change that muSt 
have been going on within me ever since my new 
friend began, as he said, to work with and for me, 
and to unfold his beautiful message of life and 
health! My soul seemed burSting with joy, with 
love, with an inexpressible song of gratitude ! 

129 



THE DIAEY OF 

Then I saw him coming slowly along the path 
beneath me, Stopping now and then to look at a 
flower, or to pick up a bright pebble, his hat off 
and his coat thrown over his arm, his whole being 
aglow with health and happiness and the joy of 
living. I could not wait for him. With an im- 
pulse that I did not try to reStrain, I rushed down 
the pathway and almost threw myself into his 
arms. 

"Look at me!" I cried, "I am well again — you 
— you — ! ' ' 

I Stopped for sheer want of breath. And then 
I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment, and 
I Stammered out an apology for my impulsiveness. 

For a few moments he Stood looking at me, his 
face alight with that same smile of tenderness 
and compassion that had seemed to draw me up 
from the depths of despair when I made my agon- 
ized appeal to him a few days ago. Then — and 
his voice was like the whispering of the morning 
breeze among the flowers — he murmured, "Said 
I not unto thee that if thou wouldSt believe thou 
shouldSt see the glory of God?" 



These words were spoken by the tender Jesus 
of Nazareth long, long ago, as a rebuke to the 
unbelief of a poor, grief-Stricken woman. That her 
brother, who had been dead three days, should be 
restored to her, alive and well, was impossible — 
too good to be true. 

130 



JEAN EVARTS 

And Jesus simply told her that nothing was 
too good to be true; that it was only the good that 
was true, and that his message to mankind was 
to tell them that if they would Bop looking at evil, 
and would look only at Good, and believe only in 
the reality of Good, every tear should be wiped 
away, every wounded heart healed, and every 
mountain of sorrow removed and caSi into the sea 
of oblivion. 

It was not the man Jesus, but the Christ Prin- 
ciple working through him, that healed the sick 
and raised the dead. That Principle is eternal, 
and is with us today ju&t as much as it was when 
Jesus taught by the shores of Galilee. It is jui§t 
as effective today as it was then, for, like the rules 
of mathematics or music, it suffers no diminution 
of power with age. And like these, it is abso- 
lutely unfailing when correctly applied. 

We have said that the real Man is the spiritual 
likeness, the image, of infinite Mind, and that 
mortal man is the image of the communal mortal 
mind, and therefore the opposite of real Man. 
We have said that Man has never fallen, and that 
mortal man is not to be saved — cannot be saved 
as such. A mortal is not a Man. The physical 
concept of man is an insult to divine Intelligence. 

Yet, since ideas of Right and Justice and Grood 
permeate even material modes of condu6t to some 
extent, so the consciousness which we call mortal 
man is not wholly without some reflection of divine 
qualities. A spark of love is often seen in the 
lowest criminal; and the mo§t hardened sinner 

131 



THE DIAEY OF 

sometimes shows that he is not wholly devoid of 
spiritual thought. God is seen in His refle6tion, 
and He is thus seen to some extent everywhere. 
Neither time nor space nor false thought of any 
kind can so wholly occupy a human consciousness 
as to keep out every divine attribute. When Jesus 
looked upon a man he saw, not the mortal man, 
not the unreal man, the opposite, the counterfeit, 
of true Man, but the reality that lay behind all 
this, and in that reality he saw the image of God, 
divine Mind. 

What was the result? His knowledge of the 
reality of infinite Good and its image, Man, de- 
stroyed in the human consciousness of the sick 
mortal the mental concept of disease, and re- 
placed it with a concept of health. The body, itself 
a thing of thought, responded inStantly to the 
radical change of thought regarding it. 

As in any problem the truth in regard to it 
affords the corre6t solution, so the truth with re- 
gard to Man solves the problem of the mortal. 
And this is the only "salvation" possible to man- 
kind. The only salvation for the counterfeit dollar 
is to make it over; and in this process it mu&t 
disappear. So it is with mortals. The mental 
activity of false thought, which results in those 
mental concepts which constitute mortal man and 
his universe, mu§t be replaced by the a6tivity of 
true thought, which in turn will form mental con- 
cepts of the true Man and God's Creation. 

God is Mind. Mind originates ideas. Ideas 
form thought-images. These ideas are infinite in 

132 



JEAN EVARTS 

number and variety. The unfolding of these ideas 
in Mind is the Creation. The highest idea that 
Mind can have is the idea of Itself. This idea 
necessarily includes all other ideas. This idea 
exists in Mind, and is eternal with it. This idea 
is the exaSt image and likeness of Mind. It is a 
reflection of all of Mind's qualities and attributes. 
It is therefore the "conscious identity" of being 
like infinite Mind. That is, it manifests conscious- 
ness and individuality. It is "an individualized 
expression" of Mind. This idea is Man. This is 
the Man that Jesus always saw. 

Very far removed, indeed, from the common 
conception of man ! The true Man is not flesh and 
bones. He is not confined in a body. He is not 
limited. He is in no sense material. He is a 
spiritual being, an unlimited consciousness, whose 
mental activity is the activity of God's thought. 
This thought comes directly from God, infinite 
Mind, and forming the real consciousness, is re- 
flected there so as to express and manifest God. 
Man, being God's idea, is, in a sense, actually 
formed and made up of God's thought. 

As Mind, God, has countless ideas of Himself, 
so there are countless individualized expressions 
of His conscious Being. These are Men. They 
are the sons and daughters of God. Each is a 
consciousness whose capacity is unlimited, and 
each is a channel through which God expresses 
Himself. At no time does He express Himself 
fully through any one of His ideas — this is the 
work of eternity. But whatever expression there 

133 



THE DIARY OF 

may be at any time is always perfect, harmonious, 
beautiful, and good. 

The lesser ideas of Mind form the re§t of the 
Creation ; and these ideas are interpreted by mor- 
tal consciousness as flowers, hills, Streams, ani- 
mals, etc., although the material concepts which 
bear these names may be, and probably are very 
different from the spiritual realities of which 
they are the crude interpretations, or represen- 
tations. 

And all was created to reflect and manifest the 
greatness, the glory and grandeur of limitless 
Mind. ' i For thou ha§t created all things, and for 
thy pleasure they are and were created." 

By the supposition of opposites, the communal 
mortal mind, the opposite of infinite Mind, simu- 
lates all the powers and attributes of Mind. Its 
consciousness is the activity of false thought, and 
is itself, therefore, false. Its a6tivity is simulated 
a6tivity. Its creation is a false creation, consist- 
ing of mental concepts built up out of false 
thought. Its image and likeness, mortal man, is 
also false and unreal; and men, the sons and 
daughters of mortal mind, are without Principle, 
and are therefore chaotic, diseased, and transi- 
tory, vanishing, like mortal dreams, into the noth- 
ingness called death. 

The modus of the human mind is one of coun- 
terfeiting. The human consciousness, which is 
concerned with the activity of thoughts of mixed 
good and evil, becomes aware of the existence of 
one of the realities of Mind, a real Idea. This 

134 



JEAN EVARTS 

awareness comes to the human consciousness 
through sense-perception, which has been defined 
as "an unintelligible sort of mental awareness/ ' 
This sense-perception is then passed through the 
moulds of human thought, where the forces of 
pa§t experience, training, education, or human 
opinion are brought to bear, and it then becomes 
mentally interpreted, after which it comes out an 
image of human thought, that is, a mental con- 
cept. Human belief classifies it and gives it a 
name, and it then takes its place in the human 
consciousness as an object of creation, a tree, a 
mountain, a man, or one of the myriad so-called 
material things that form the material universe 
that the mortal man thinks he sees without him- 
self. In this way are formed all of the objeSls of 
the material creation and of material experience 
and existence. These material obje6ts of creation 
are all crude misrepresentations of spiritual real- 
ities, which themselves are parts of God's crea- 
tion. These so-called material obje6ts exiSt only 
in the human mentality, and have only the reality, 
powers, and attributes which that mentality gives 
them. They are not formed by infinite Mind, nor 
has that Mind anything to do with them. All the 
evil that men think they can know clusters about 
these material creations of the human conscious- 
ness. 

What salvation is there for such a creation 
and such a man? None, absolutely none. This 
sort of man cannot be perpetuated. He is doomed 
by his very nature. Jesus knew that this sort of 

135 



THE DIARY OF 

man was not to be saved; and so his plan of re- 
demption was one of absolute reconstruction, a 
putting off of the old man, and a putting on of the 
new — that is, a laying aside of the seeming, and 
an uncovering or revealing of the real existing 
Man. 

This "putting off" process is simple in Prin- 
ciple, as is all Truth. It consists of emptying the 
mentality of false thoughts, and replacing these 
with true. True thoughts, coming from divine 
Mind, enter the human consciousness and dissolve 
there the mental images and concepts which have 
been formed of false thought, replacing them 
with mental concepts formed of God's thought, 
which is wholly free from evil. 

The consciousness then gives way to the activ- 
ity of reality, of Truth, and true consciousness 
appears. God's thoughts fill this consciousness 
and form there true mental concepts. These be- 
come externalized in spirituality, immortality, 
and freedom from all limitations of evil. Sin, 
sorrow, sickness, loss, lack, decay, and death — all 
the festering brood of false thoughts that inhabit 
the human consciousness — are shown to be devoid 
of Principle and Life, and to be without any basis 
of reality. Denial of their reality, and opposition 
to their supposed presence, together with the un- 
derstanding of their nothingness, drives them out, 
and in driving them out consumes them, that is t 
shows them to be but falsities, illusions, however 
real they may have seemed to the mentality that 
harbored them. When the human consciousness 

136 



JEAN EVARTS 

is finally freed from the a6tivity of false thought, 
it will cease its simulated existence. Then mater- 
iality and evil will likewise cease; and when the 
material concepts dissolve and give place to the 
spiritual, "the heavens will be rolled up as a 
scroll. ' ' 

Man is not annihilated by this process, nor 
does he lose his individuality. On the contrary, 
his apparently lo£fc individuality, the real individ- 
uality, is regained, or is brought to light. It is 
not Man that is lo&t in this process, but the false 
sense of man. The material "I" certainly is lo&t, 
and there is no help for it. All sense of sin, of 
matter, of material pleasures and suffering, all 
sense of life in matter, and of decay and death, 
will pass away. It is all without Principle or 
Creator, and is wholly dependent upon falsity for 
its apparent existence. The material sense of 
selfhood will be destroyed. 

But as the false concepts disappear, the real 
appear. Nothing real can be lo&t. The material 
sense of man is that which sins and dies, and not 
God's Man. It is the sense of sin, and of all that 
such sinful sense entails, that is lo&t in this divine 
process. The conflict between Truth and error 
— which, after all, is but a seeming conflict, for 
Truth has no Strife with its suppositional oppo- 
site — takes place only within the human con- 
sciousness. And this conflict can have but one 
result, namely, the extinction of the suppositional 
activity which constitutes the human conscious- 
ness. The counterfeit coin cannot be made gen- 

137 



THE DIARY OF 

uine. Neither can the mortal man be made gen- 
nine. Like the counterfeit dollar, he mu&t cease 
to be, and mu&t give place to the real. Mortal 
man reflects only in slight degree the realities of 
God. But as the mortal consciousness becomes 
filled with Truth, it gradually ceases to be, until 
finally it goes out altogether, and the real con- 
sciousness, God's Man, Stands revealed. Paul 
said that this new man was "renewed in knowl- 
edge after the image of Him that created him." 
The renewed man is the mortal man going < out, 
and, in the passing, becoming a better transpar- 
ency through which the real Man is discerned. As 
the mi&t dissolves and the rich landscape beyond 
becomes ever more and more di§tin<5t, so the 
human consciousness, the mortal man, becomes 
more and more tenuous under the powerful influ- 
ence of Truth, revealing ever more clearly the real 
Man, the likeness of divine Mind, which had 
seemed to be obscured by it. The real Man is not 
renewed, for he is ever perfe6t, forever reflecting 
the infinite perfection of the Mind that created 
him. It is thus that the pure in heart see God. 
As the false thinking gives place to better think- 
ing, and erroneous concepts yield to better ones, 
we begin to see through the renewed man as an 
ever clarifying transparency the real Man, and in 
this real Man the likeness of that Mind which is 
back of all that is. 

Finally, this "putting off" process cannot re- 
sult in loss of consciousness. For consciousness is 
mental activity, and a mortal man has no true 

138 



JEAN EVAETS 

consciousness, since a mental a6tivity of mixed 
good and evil thoughts is a self-contradi6tory 
mentality. The mortal loses his beliefs of evil 
and his sense of discord. This sort of mental 
a6tivity ceases. But the mental activity that re- 
places this is the activity of real thought, consti- 
tuting a real consciousness. Therefore, instead 
of losing his consciousness, the man has gained a 
new one. 

If a criminal reforms and turns from his evil 
ways, if his consciousness of pleasure in crime is 
replaced by a consciousness of pleasure in good, 
can he be said to have loSt his consciousness in 
the process of transformation? And if we, by the 
divine process, lose our consciousness of sin, dis- 
ease, matter, and all evil, can it be said that we 
have lo&t anything? Are not these the very things 
that humanity has Struggled throughout the ages 
to get rid of? Jesus 's mission was to show man- 
kind how to do it. And he proved the truth of his 
teachings by doing it himself. 



"Do you mean to say that Jesus taught these 
things that you have been telling me?" I queried. 
"I have never read them in the Bible; and cer- 
tainly they are not preached in our churches/ ' 

"No, these things are not preached from our 
pulpits," he answered. "But the theories, dogmas 
and man-made doctrines that are preached so 
generally in our churches are very far from being 
the pure Christianity that Jesus taught. As I 

139 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

have said, and I but repeat Iris words, 'by their 
fruits ye shall know them.' The teSt is a6tual 
demonstration, for Truth is always demonstrable ; 
and if by applying our understanding of his 
teachings we can obtain the results he said we 
would, we may be very sure we have understood 
him corre6tly, regardless of what theologians or 
wise men may say." 

"But I don't see that we get the results he 
said we would," I argued, with some petulance. 
"People sicken and die now juSt as they did in 
his time." 

"And some," he replied quickly, "are saved 
from these things by those few who do under- 
stand his work, and who know how to apply, at 
leaSt in part, the great Principle he taught." 

Then he left me. And when he had gone the 
realization of what he had done for me came upon 
me with such suddenness that I sat as one 
Stunned. When I came to myself I hurriedly rose 
and Started after him. 

But he had passed from my sight. And with 
his going the sun seemed to sink, and night began 
to cover the valley and the pathway with its som- 
ber robe. With eyes blinded with tears of re- 
pentance I groped my way back to the house ; and 
there, in the quiet of my little room, I knelt and 
offered the firSt prayer of gratitude that has come 
from my lips since childhood. 



140 



MAY 21ST 



MAY 21ST 




NEW sense of life has unfolded 
within me! A song of joy, an 
eagerness to praise God for this 
rich inflow of happiness, welled in 
my heart when I awoke this morn- 
ing and saw the sunlight pouring 
into the room in a shower of gold. So has Truth 
itself poured into my waiting mind these pa&t 
few days and created there a better concept of 
being. Life — freedom — health ! My eyes fill with 
tears of gratitude when I try to realize that these 
have been restored to me. 

Who is this Stranger? And why does he never 
speak of himself? It seemed so natural that he 
should come to me in my hour of greatest need, 
that I did not then question the motives that sent 
him. I seemed to know him — I feel now as if I 
had always known him. And I have accepted him 
as he has chosen to come — much, I think, as Jesus 
came to the waiting hearts of Galilee, saying little 
about himself, but wonderful things of the Father 
who had sent him. 

"Of myself I have done nothing," lie said, 
when I tried this morning to express my over- 
whelming sense of gratitude. "It was the Chri&t 
Principle operating in your consciousness, which, 
like Jesus with his whip of cords, drove out the 
money changers and traffickers who had made the 
temple of the Mo§t High a den of thieves. Your 
consciousness is God's temple; and when Jesus 
said to those whom he had healed, 'Go, and 
he bade them, as I do you, keep 

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THE DIARY OF 

watch at the doorway of this temple, that the 
thieves might not enter again/ ' 



To lis as honest searchers after Truth, who 
turn to a Study of the life and deeds of Jesus as 
recorded in the Bible, theological subtleties, man- 
made creeds, or involved points of do6trine are 
wholly without interest. It is of little importance 
when or where the man Jesus lived. His gene- 
alogy does not call for a second thought. How 
long he lived, what he looked like, and the thou- 
sand other points of human interest that satisfy 
the merely curious, have no concern for us. 

Nor are we vitally interested in the authorship 
of his history. Whether Matthew wrote the gospel 
generally attributed to him, and when or in what 
language it was written, are of no special moment. 
The queStion of the priority of the book of Mark, 
and the tangled disputes regarding the author- 
ship of the book of John, have no bearing what- 
soever on our search. The problem of the Synop- 
tic gospels, their disagreements in trivial points 
of narrative, are unworthy of our time and 
thought. However important they may be con- 
sidered from a theological point of view, the proof 
of the canon, and the proof that the gospels were 
written by the men whose names they bear, are in 
no way essential to the demonstration of Chris- 
tianity as a divine revelation. 

As to Paul, it has been said that he had a fit 
on the way to Damascus. But we may dismiss 

144 



JEAN EVARTS 

the incident with the casual observation that, if 
so, it was the moSt momentous fit a human being 
ever had. The question of authorship of the book 
of Hebrews may be left for those worldly wise to 
settle who find recreation and pleasure in this 
sort of research. Even the conflicting views re- 
garding the historicity of the man Jesus, which 
have given rise to such heated debates, and are 
Still left unsettled, have no immediate bearing on 
our problem. We accept the historical Statement 
that he lived in the time of Augustus, even as we 
accept the historicity of Augustus himself. 

What, then, is our problem? 

This: Can that which Jesus is reported to 
have taught be formulated as the expression of a 
definite Principle, or Truth? If so, can it be 
grasped by mankind, and successfully applied to 
the so-called problem of human existence? 

For, if that which has been reported in the 
New Testament as his teaching is an exposition 
of Truth, and if we can grasp it, we can demon- 
strate it as rigidly as we can prove the truth of a 
mathematical principle. 

If it is not capable of proof, we but waSte our 
time discussing it. 

Unfortunately for the world, many of its 
greateSt minds have expended their energies on 
the historical record and letter of Christianity, 
rather than on any systematic attempts to prove 
the truth or falsity of the claims of what we know 
as the ChriSt Principle. If men could not agree 
on the authenticity of the works attributed to 

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Jesus, why did they not follow the rules he gave 
for doing these same works, and thus prove 
whether or not he told the truth. There is but one 
te£t, demonstration. And Jesus insisted on this 
very point, and begged his hearers to follow his 
rules, his commands, and do the same works, and 
even greater works than he did. Those of us who 
are warmest in insisting that Jesus was a man of 
the highest integrity, are frequently the la&t to 
admit that he told the truth. His teachings mu&t 
Stand or fall by the teSt of a6tual demonstration, 
even as the principles of music, mathematics, or 
engineering. Faith in his goodness and integrity 
will not carry us far ; we are called upon to prove 
the quality of his teachings. 

One great obstacle in the minds of men has 
been disbelief in their ability to prove what Jesus 
taught. They have thought that his work was 
for a certain time only. He did these works, they 
say, to prove that he was the Messiah, and men 
would be presumptuous to try to imitate that 
which only a supernatural being could do. 

Another obstacle has been the inherent inertia 
of the human mind. It requires great mental 
effort to prove metaphysical principles. It was 
far easier to believe that Jesus did his work for 
all mankind, to the utter exemption of any re- 
sponsibility on their part, and that in some way, 
if men could muSter up sufficient faith in him they 
would be carried through the gateway of death 
and finally saved. Yet, if what Jesus is reported 
to have taught is true, and if what we have said 

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JEAN EVARTS 

in the paSt few days about the mortal man is like- 
wise true, every man, without a single exception, 
will have to take every Step he took, will have to 
prove all he proved, and do it for himself, even to 
the overcoming of death and matter, before im- 
mortality can be reached, with its freedom from 
the ills that afflidi the human race. If the theo- 
logians who have written volumes on the disputed 
question of the resurrection had expended their 
efforts in an attempt to prove, by following with- 
out deviation the rules laid down by Jesus, 
whether or not it was possible to resurre6t those 
sunken in vice, disease, and misery, they would 
have lo§t interest in a bodily resurre<5tion, and 
would have brought the millennium nearer by 
many centuries. If the preachers of the gospel, the 
do6tors and the philanthropists had followed in 
the way Jesus walked, it would have led them out 
of the darkness of materialism and into a true 
resurrection from all belief in that which God and 
Man are not and never could have been. Jesus 
preached the gospel of a perfe6t Father, a God 
who is Spirit, a God who is Love. Yet the theo- 
logians Still preach the utterly impossible do6trine 
of Spirit as the creator of a universe of matter 
and a sinful man of flesh — logic that would not be 
tolerated for a moment in the world of science. 
Jesus healed all manner of disease, instantan- 
eously, and he taught his followers to do the same. 
Yet materia medica, the moSt uncertain of all 
sciences, is no nearer eradicating disease from 
human experience today than it was when Jesus 

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cleared the human consciousness of its foul brood 
of beliefs by his certain application of the Christ 
Principle, and without the use of drugs or bodily 
manipulation. 

The keynote of Jesus 's teaching was the 
Fatherhood of God. When he said, "And call no 
man your father upon the earth : for one is your 
Father, which is in heaven," he pointed men in 
the way of right thinking, and gave them the 
major premise from which every corre6t con- 
clusion might logically be deduced. His whole 
ministry was a development of the idea of the 
Fatherhood of God, and its application to the 
needs of the human consciousness. 

He Stated God in terms of right rules of con- 
duct, as Principle, or "cause in the widest sense." 
As defined by our own Lexicographers, Principle 
is "that by which anything is in any way ulti- 
mately regulated or determined;" "the begin- 
ning;" "original cause;" "origin;" "source;" 
"a permanent and fundamental cause that natur- 
ally and necessarily produces certain results." 

God being Principle, He is that "with whom 
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," 
for Truth never changes. Since He is that by 
which all is, His law is the only law, and the law 
of His being mu£t be the law of all being. There- 
fore, man-made laws and human hypotheses and 
speculations have no warrant or authority, nor 
have any laws unless they are based upon divine 
Principle. 

148 



JEAN EVARTS 

In the light of what has been said during the 
pa&t few days, can we assume that God is the 
Father of mortals? 

Mortals have no principle, no cause, no cre- 
ator, no father. Their simulated existence is 
wholly dependent upon God. Were it not for Him, 
they could offer no claim to life and being. What- 
ever life they seem to have — and their life is but 
a seeming — is a material interpretation of Him 
who is Life. All that in any sense mortals seem 
to be or to have is wholly dependent upon God, 
and is a simulation of what He is and has. He 
did not, by a deliberate a6t of creation, bring 
them into their simulated existence; yet if Prin- 
ciple, Life, Truth, Love, etc., which they simulate, 
were withdrawn from them they would vanish 
into their native nothingness. Their very exist- 
ence hangs upon Him. They can look to no other 
Father than God. He draws them, as Jesus said 
He drew all men and would continue to draw 
them, until every knee should bow to Him and 
every tongue confess His name. What does this 
mean? A mere confession of belief in the divinity 
of God ? Much more, for mortal man would never 
confess the name of God until he had been com- 
pletely transformed and had ceased to be mortal. 
It is not possible to the consciousness that is 
wholly material to confess that infinite Mind is 
supreme. That consciousness mu§t fir&t be drawn 
to infinite Mind, through Love, and mu§t be sub- 
jected to the working of the Christ Principle, 
Truth, which enters the mortal consciousness and 

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THE DIARY OF 

dissolves the false material concepts there and 
replaces them with concepts of reality. In this 
way the mortal consciousness changes its beliefs 
and concepts, beliefs of sin and sickness giving 
way to better beliefs of goodness and health, and 
the consciousness continually becoming a clearer 
transparency for Truth, until, ever changing in 
response to the perfect model held before it, the 
mortal consciousness at laSt ceases to be, and the 
true spiritual consciousness, in which there is no 
materiality, and no mortality, Stands permanently 
revealed. Thus is God the Father even of mor- 
tals, in that He sustains them while subje6ted to 
this divine process, even though they may pass 
through the experience called death, which is but 
another modus of mortal thought. As the divine 
Father who is Love, He draws them to Himself, 
to be changed and to give place to His own image 
and likeness. He did not create imperfe6t, mortal 
men. Yet even they cannot escape that all-per- 
vading, infinite Love that lifts them up out of 
darkness into the light that is Life. 

The firSt Step in this process of transforming 
the mortal man is to implant within the mortal 
consciousness the great Truth of God's infinitude. 
Hence the command which Jesus said embodied 
all the law and the prophets: "Hear, Israel; 
the Lord our God is one God: and thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all 
thy Strength : this is the firSt and great command- 
ment." "Thou shalt have no other Gods before 

150 



JEAN EVAETS 

me," if thou would&t see false consciousness dis- 
solve and give place to the real. To love God 
supremely is to love supremely that which alone 
is Good and Truth. It is to rid ourselves of falsi- 
ties, of lu&t, envy, hatred, avarice, selfishness, 
fear, and all the evils that combine under these 
names. It is to meet and put out of consciousness, 
and, therefore, out of experience, sin and disease, 
whether called mental, moral, or physical, and all 
discord of every name and nature. Jesus was a 
very wise man, generally regarded as the wisest 
man that ever lived. He knew that it was pos- 
sible for men to follow his commands, else he 
would not have urged them. But, more, he knew 
that men would have to follow them, or they would 
continue to sicken and suffer and die. He showed 
by his own life what might be expe6ted as the re- 
sult of following these commands, and he proved 
the truth of every Statement he made. He did 
not tell men that they muSt wait until they had 
died before they could see the proofs. 

Jesus taught that God is Love; and he told 
men that they mu£fc love one another, or they 
could not fulfil the law of their being. This was 
perfe6tly logical, for by loving his neighbor as 
himself, man reflected God; and he never could 
refle6t God until he did so. This was why, after 
giving the firSt great commandment, Jesus added : 
" And the second is like unto it, namely this, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

Mortals have but a faint idea of what would 
be the result of loving God supremely and of lov- 

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THE DIAEY OF 

ing one's neighbor as one's self, with an abso- 
lutely unselfish love. This alone would result in 
obliterating the mortal sense of self. The mortal 
man is a bargainer. He gives where he thinks he 
will get something of value in return. He is a 
trafficker, and he thinks his methods reflect great 
shrewdness. But even from the business Stand- 
point, he never made a greater blunder than that 
of failing to love Good supremely, and his neigh- 
bor and business associates as himself. To a 
certain extent he knows this, but he is afraid to 
put it to the te§t, fearing that while he is trying 
it his fellow man will get some material advantage 
over him. Yet this would be absolutely impossible 
if he understood the Principle of Good, and how 
to use it for his own protection and those within 
the radius of his thought. If his faith were on 
the side of Good, instead of evil, he would ca&t out 
fear and rise above its mesmerizing influence. 

In our fir&t talk we drew the conclusion that 
an infinite Creator mu§t of very necessity be a 
God of Love. Jesus taught that the law of Man's 
being is divine Principle itself, and that Principle 
is Love. No man has ever loved as Jesus did; 
and when he said to Philip, "He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father," he Stated plainly that 
the Father is Love. Not love in the human sense, 
not a love that could mingle with jealousy or self- 
seeking, not a love that is subject to fear, but a 
love that seeks the welfare of others, and that 
expresses itself in joy, happiness, health, abun- 
dance, and all good for all mankind, impartially 

152 



JEAN EVARTS 

and without limitation. When he bade men love 
one another he laid down a rule whereby harmony 
might be brought into their lives. Discord in 
human experience results from broken law. And 
the failure to fulfil this fundamental law of Love, 
which Jesus taught mankind, is responsible for 
the multitude of discords, woes, and sorrows that 
are externalized in the human consciousness and 
experience today. 

Jesus taught that the power of Love is infinite. 
Nothing can Stand against it or oppose it. We 
have some proofs of this even on the human plane. 
The mighty works that Jesus performed were 
based on his understanding of God's infinite love 
for His whole Creation, including Man. God, as 
Love, could not affli6t His children. He could not 
create children so imperfect that he mu&t needs 
send affli6tions upon them in order to discipline 
them. His very nature makes Him bestow all 
good upon them. And He has already done this. 
Jesus knew it, and the knowledge of this great 
fa6t enabled him to dissolve the false concepts 
held in the human consciousness and let in the 
light of Truth. 

To love is to be wholly unselfish. Jesus showed 
that the love that craves the gratification of 
human desires is not Love, but covetousness. His 
life was an unbroken exemplification of the great 
truth that true love for God is bound to manifest 
itself in unselfish love for one's fellow men. To 
those who thought they loved the God whom they 
had not seen, he gave a simple te£t: How much 

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THE DIARY OF 

of that God who is Love are you reflecting to your 
neighbor? What are you doing in your daily life 
that is not for your own material advancement, 
your own selfish ends? Are you willing to sell 
what you have and give to the poor? In other 
words, are you willing to part with selfishness, 
greed, avarice, covetousness, and all self-seeking, 
and include your neighbor's welfare and happi- 
ness in your thought with your own? This is to 
love. It is not passion, it is not romantic attach- 
ment, it is not mesmerism, it is not sensual or ma- 
terial — it is the reflection of Him who was seen by 
men in the tenderness, the patience, the goodness 
of Christ Jesus, in the compassion that forgave 
the sinful woman, in the Omnipotence that stilled 
the raging tempe&t. 

How many of those in the world today who 
lament the evil and sin that surround them are 
willing to admit that Jesus, by precept and ex- 
ample, gave the only rule whereby such things 
might be removed from human experience? Or, 
admitting it, are willing to obey him and love 
their fellow men as themselves in every walk of 
life, business, social, or whatsoever it may be? 
And if they believe this to be impossible, where 
else will they look for salvation? What else is 
offered them? What is there in man-made creeds 
and human do6trines and opinions that will relieve 
a single one of their sufferings, or remove a single 
discord from their conscious experience? The 
world has nothing but dry bones to offer. The 
law of Love admits of rigid and exa6t demon&tra- 

154 



JEAN EVARTS 

tion, and man is without excuse if he turns from 
it to the frail offerings of those on his own men- 
tal plane. 

Jesus developed the idea of God as Spirit, and 
of Man as the image and likeness of Spirit, and 
therefore spiritual. The religious creeds of men 
embody the letter of this great truth in one form 
or another ; but who holds to it in f a6t, or shapes 
his condu6t to conform to it? How can a man of 
flesh, or a mixture of soul and body, a medley of 
good and evil, of mind and matter, of the real and 
the unreal, be the image and likeness of infinite, 
incorporeal Spirit? Paul said, "They that are in 
the flesh cannot please God. ' ' Is it thinkable that 
He made something that He was not pleased with, 
He who is himself infinite Perfection, unlimited 
Wisdom? Can Spirit make matter, its dire6t anti- 
thesis? Can light produce darkness? Material- 
ity is the habitat of all that is known as evil. The 
false belief that matter possesses life, sensation, 
and intelligence, that it is the cause of comfort, 
pleasure, and well-being, is the basis of all lying, 
cheating, stealing, and murder. Men lie about 
material things; they Steal material objects be- 
cause they believe they are the source of good; 
they murder because they believe that matter 
holds within itself the issues of life and death. 
Their pleasurable sensations, as well as their 
pains and afflictions, are based on matter. Yet 
this man of matter, unhappily attributed to God, 
is the man that Jesus and Paul insisted would 
have to be "put off." 

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THE DIAKY OF 

Jesus, the man, manifested the ChriSt Prin- 
ciple, and he did this as perfectly and as consist- 
ently as human limitations of form and environ- 
ment permitted. Jesus the ChriSt reflected the 
divine nature, and this made him the image and 
likeness of God, the Son of God. It was his spirit- 
ual nature that was God's image and likeness. 
He taught things that were Strange to his hearers, 
but he always followed his words with deeds that 
proved them words of Truth. His mission was to 
show all men how to overcome evil by overcoming 
the false beliefs, the false thinking, that produce 
it, and by understanding the Principle that is the 
sole Cause and Creator of all that exiSts. He 
began by urging men to repent — not merely to 
show sorrow for their evil ways, but to cease the 
kind of thinking that results in wrong condu<5t. 
For, in the Greek text, the word metanoia, which 
we translate as "repentance," means a complete 
change of thought. A change of thought, in turn, 
results in a change in external manifestation. 

Jesus lifted men up to claim no lesser parent- 
age than infinite Mind; and by healing the sick, 
raising the dead, and other works marvelous in 
the sight of his followers, he showed what it meant 
to be completely in accord with God, what it 
meant to love Him supremely, and one's neighbor 
as one's self. By overcoming death, error, and 
matter, he proved Life, Truth, and Spirit to be 
supreme. His radical teaching showed that he 
knew God in a way that others did not. And he 
knew that he would have to prove this way of 

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JEAN EVAETS 

knowing God to be the only corre6t way by doing 
the works we call miracles. Miracles, indeed, to 
the materialistic human mind, incapable of per- 
forming like wonders ; yet divinely natural to the 
Mind that was in Christ Jesus, unfettered by man- 
made laws, unhampered by any sense of limita- 
tion, and unhindered by any belief in the reality 
of matter. To change a material concept is no 
greater miracle to infinite Mind than the correc- 
tion of an error in addition is to the Principle of 
Mathematics. 

Jesus acknowledged no allegiance to any form 
of religious belief or do6trine. He was wholly 
unorthodox, and so radical in his teaching and 
pra6tice that he astounded beyond measure the 
rabbis and wise men of his time. He refused to 
acknowledge any power but God, and on the basis 
of his understanding of the infinitude of God he 
showed evil to be but a false concept in the human 
consciousness, and matter to be the opposite of 
Spirit, and therefore one in nature with evil. He 
taught that to believe in the power of evil is to 
fight in evil's cause. He said, " Resist not evil." 
Why? Because resisting it as men do is a direct 
acknowledgment of its reality; and the human 
mind can never overcome anything that it believes 
and acknowledges to be real. A real thing is 
eternal. It is for all eternity, and can never be 
de&trcyed or overcome, any more than the truth 
that 2+2=4 can ever be successfully refuted. He 
overcame evil on the basis of its nothingness, and 

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THE DIARY OF 

he never acknowledged its assumed power and 
reality by Struggling with it. 

Jesus proved the unlimited dominion of Man 
conformed to God, and this he did to the great 
astonishment of those who witnessed his deeds. 
Their concept of man did not differ from that held 
in the human consciousness today, a limited, sin- 
ful, discordant, fallen man, looking vainly for a 
promised deliverance. He tried to show them 
that their deliverance had really come, and his 
oft repeated question, " Whom say ye that I am?' 
witnessed to his yearning to be understood as the 
teacher of that which would set men free from the 
bondage of false beliefs. He proved even death 
itself, the king of terrors, to be but the belief of 
death, the very logical result of all the false be- 
liefs which make up the human man. He knew 
that if men would Stop believing in a power op- 
posed to God, and would put out of their thought 
all other sinful beliefs, death would disappear 
from consciousness. He overcame death on tfie 
basis of Life as infinite and eternal. 

When he bade men take no anxious thought 
for the morrow he was telling them plainly that 
it was God's business to supply their needs, and 
that God did not have to be reminded of His duty. 
All supply comes into the human consciousness as 
thought before it becomes externalized in con- 
sciousness as that which meets human needs. As 
God is the only Mind, and therefore the only 
thinker, the mental supply can come only from 
Him. Jesus did not tell men that God would meet 

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JEAN EVARTS 

their human desires, nor that by pleading with 
Him they could influence Him to satisfy their 
covetousness. But he did show them that God, as 
Love, mu&t continually send all that is needed for 
the comfort and well-being of all mankind. But 
if the consciousness that constitutes the mortal 
man is already full of limitation thought, of 
anxious worry thought, and of disbelief in the 
power of Good, there can be but little room left 
for God's thought to operate, and men thus see 
their needs imperf e6tly met. He knew that taking 
anxious thought for the morrow was limiting 
one's thought of God, and that a thought of lim- 
itation held in the human consciousness would 
result in limitation being brought out in conscious 
experience. Did he say this, in so many words? 
Did he thus formulate his teaching to his hearers? 
There is no written record that he did. But his 
deeds and Ms life conduSi showed that he knew 
this Truth — showed that this Truth was oper- 
ating through the man Jesus. And a persistent 
and faithful application of this same rule is today 
bringing forth similar fruit. 

It has been truly said that Jesus 's keynote of 
harmony when facing discordant conditions was, 
"Be not afraid." How could one who was in 
complete accord with God be afraid? He knew 
that fear is at the bottom of nearly all discord. 
He knew that fear is sin, for it is disbelief in God. 
And disbelief in God is belief in His suppositional 
opposite, evil. It is sin that results in death. 
Therefore he urged his followers to be of good 

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cheer, to fear not. He met every condition as its 
master, and he gave mankind the rule for doing 
the same. Circumstances are simply the things 
that seem to the human sense to gather or form 
around us; and Jesus Stated that there was no 
circumstance that could prove too Strong for us 
if we had faith ' ' even as a grain of muStard seed, ' ' 
— faith in the infinite goodness of God, and under- 
Standing of the nothingness of whatever seems to 
oppose Him. It is true that, although he once 
said, "Resi&t not evil," on another occasion he 
did say, "ResiSt the devil and he will flee from 
you." His manner of resisting the devil, evil 
suggestions, evil thoughts, was exemplified in the 
wilderness, when he bade evil get behind him, for 
there is but one Power, one God, infinite Good. 
This is the method of resisting by knowing, juSt 
as we resiSt any problem by knowing the rule that 
will solve it. His method of resisting was knowing 
the Truth in all cases, juSt as our method of re- 
sisting the suggestion that 2+2=7 is knowing 
that 2+2=4, and not by taking up the error as a 
real thing and trying to overcome it on the as- 
sumption of its reality. He said, "Ye shall know 
the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ' ' It 
is the Truth that makes us free to solve every 
problem. How are we to know the Truth? Even 
as he said, by continuing in his words. And we 
continue in his words when we put them to the 
teSt and live as he lived, in complete accord with 
God. 

160 



JEAN EVARTS 

In all of his mighty works he Started with God 
as the major premise. When confronted with the 
impotent man he said, "Rise, take up thy bed, and 
walk." This was equivalent to saying, "God 
being the only Power, there is nothing that can 
hold Man, and nothing that can enforce a pre- 
tense of holding Man. The claim of a man being 
held by anything opposed to God is a claim of 
power apart from God, and is a lie. You are free, 
free-born, free to do and be what is right for you 
to do and be, and you have the God-given ability 
to see this and to manifest it. ' ' 

To the man with the withered hand he said, 
"Stretch forth thy hand." He did not say, "Re- 
ceive another hand," but, "Stretch forth THY 
hand," the one you already have, for there is no 
evil power that can deprive you of it. Such a 
power would give the lie to God, and is incon- 
ceivable. 

To the blind he said, "Receive THY sight," 
never for a moment admitting that Man could be 
blind. To Lazarus he said, ' ' Come forth. ' ' COME 
FORTH ! Man never dies, and that which claims 
to be a dead man is a lie, one with the father of 
lies, the belief that there can be anything apart 
from or opposed to God, who is infinite Life ! 

Jesus knew the Truth, and he knew that he 
knew it, for he said in his prayer at the tomb of 
Lazarus, "I knew that Thou heareSt me always." 
What would be the result if we knew that God 
always heard us? Could any manifestation of a 
supposed power apart from Him find place in 

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THE DIARY OF 

our consciousness? He went Straight to infinite 
Mind firSt, and he went with a faith that was un- 
shaken. And the results he obtained were accord- 
ing to his faith, even though the world calls them 
miracles, and looks upon a miracle as an abroga- 
tion of law for a special purpose, or, Still more 
narrowly, for the cure of those few who were 
fortunate enough to elicit the sympathy of Jesus. 
He always sought firSt "the kingdom of God," 
and everything else that he needed was added 
unto him. And he told men to do the same. Why? 
Because when one has found the kingdom of 
heaven, the kingdom of harmony, he has found all 
things. And where did he say this Kingdom was 
to be found? Within. Within the body? Within 
the carnal mind? No, the living is never found 
among the dead. The kingdom of God is a State 
of spiritual consciousness, the a6tivity of which 
is the a6tivity of God's thought, nothing less. Is 
not that within, or at leaSt, is not that where it 
should be found? Instead of arguing for a New 
Jerusalem somewhere in the skies, whose gates 
are pearl and whose Streets are paved with gold, 
why do not men seek to spiritualize their thought, 
and thereby find the Kingdom of God to be within 
their own consciousness, within themselves? 

Who are to see this Kingdom? "The pure in 
heart shall see God." Those who accept this 
great Truth and apply it faithfully, to the utter 
extinction of every thought that denies the om- 
nipotence of God, shall ultimately attain unto 
that spiritual consciousness which is perfe6tly 

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JEAN EVAETS 

harmonious, and which is Heaven. It is right 
thinking that does it, and only the right thinker 
can become pure in heart. There is no other ivay 
given unto men. Jesus specified the great reward 
— but he did not fail to specify, likewise, the con- 
ditions on which it is to be obtained. 

Jesus judged not according to appearances. 
The mortal man is a man of appearances. Jesus 
knew that that which was called man, that which 
the five physical senses were supposed to say was 
man, was really something wholly foreign to 
God's Man, and that this appearance would 
have to be put out of consciousness before the 
real Man could appear. Regardless of the so- 
called testimony of the physical senses, he knew 
that where mortal men were supposed to be, right 
there in reality were the real Men, the real chil- 
dren of God. He knew that the physical concep- 
tion of man was an association of wrong beliefs 
— as a manifestation of Truth that knows all 
things, he mu&t have known this — and he knew 
that these beliefs formed the human man. When 
a sick man was brought to him for help, he waited 
no time making a diagnosis of symptoms, but 
went right at the heart of the matter and ca&t out 
the demon of false belief that was being mani- 
fested as disease. He never hunted for life within 
the body. He knew that matter was a mental 
thing, and that it could never hold within itself 
the issues of life. He said, "Take no thought for 
the body," for he knew the effe6ts of thought 
renting upon the human concept of body. He 

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THE DIARY OF 

never gave drugs to heal disease, because he knew 
that drugs possessed only the power that mortal 
beliefs conceded to them. Moreover, faith in 
drugs is lack of faith in God as the only Power, 
and this is sin, and itself the cause of discord and 
disease. He used great common sense and suf- 
fered many things to be so for the time, but never 
once did he make any concession to error in any 
form, shape or manner when error seemed to 
make a claim to life and power. 

Finally, Jesus was in possession of a tremen- 
dous secret, namely, the understanding of the 
power of thought. He reduced everything to a 
mental plane. He said that to think evil was 
equivalent to doing it. He knew that thoughts 
tend to become manifested, and that to hold an 
evil thought is, sooner or later, to see that thought 
externalized in some form of evil deed or discord- 
ant condition. He knew that thinking led to a6tion, 
and that all thought brought forth fruit after its 
own kind. 



" Never since the beginning of recorded his- 
tory, ' ' said my friend, rising and Standing where 
the sun made his face to shine, even as I thought 
the face of Moses muSt have shone when he wiSt 
not, "have the churches been called upon as they 
are today to defend their fundamental do6trines, 
whether as set forth in the Scriptures, or as form- 
ulated by theologians. The founders of Christian 
belief have been looked upon as impoStors, or as 

164 



JEAN EVARTS 

honest but deluded fanatics; and the growth of 
Christianity is regarded by many as a gradual 
evolution through the ordinary forces that oper- 
ate in the world. And so we ask, did Jesus tell 
the truth? And was he correctly reported? Cer- 
tainly there is no written record that he taught 
these things in juSt the way they have been pre- 
sented to you. But no written record is necessary, 
for his mighty deeds were wrought upon a Prin- 
ciple that is beginning to be understood by us 
today, and we who do grasp it in part are able to 
bring forth fruit commensurate with our under- 
Standing. Of this I think you have had some 
proof.' 9 

Some proof ! Father divine, my only prayer 
is that Thou wilt give me even such understanding 
as this man has, that my life may be consecrated 
to reflecting Thee as Love, infinite Harmony, 
infinite Good! 



165 



MAY 22ND 



MAY 22ND 




S we look at those distant peaks 
across the valley," began my 
friend this morning, "we see that 
the highest have caught the fir&t 
beams of the morning sun, while 
the valley below is Still submerged 



in shadow." 



So it is with the minds of men. Those that are 
highest in the scale of spirituality are the fir§t to 
catch the unfolding of spiritual things. That 
mind is highest spiritually that has lo&t mo&t in 
materiality. The minds that are mo&t clearly 
attuned to the infinite Mind are the fir&t to refle6t 
Truth. 

Religious history reveals a gradual unfolding 
of the true idea of God and His Creation. The 
Bible is a record of this unfoldment in the minds 
of men and its effe6ts upon them. It culminates 
in the final development of this idea as Love, the 
divine Father, whom Jesus expressed, and taught 
his followers to know and refle6t. 

If men had retained what they learned from 
Jesus, it would have saved retracing the long and 
weary road that leads back to Truth. If the spirit- 
ual interpretation of his sayings had not been 
perverted, the old pagan philosophy would not 
have asserted itself again, and its modern off- 
shoots would have found no soil in which to grow. 

But not many years after he had left the world 
we find darkness again creeping over the human 

169 



THE DIARY OF 

mind. The Stern warning of James went un- 
heeded. Faith became separated from works, 
belief superseded demonstration, and the Chris- 
tianity of Jesus gradually became a theory, in 
many respects less attractive than oriental mysti- 
cism. In the third century it had begun to break 
againSt the metaphysical subtleties elaborated by 
the Greek and Latin Fathers out of the simple 
precepts of Jesus. By the middle of the fourth 
it had loSt its power to heal the sick ; and a century 
later saw the full flower of scholastic philosophy, 
human speculation, and theological dogma. 

Out of this materialistic magma there began to 
cryStallize a religious system, whose supreme 
head, arrogating to itself infallibility and the pre- 
tentious title of pontiff maximus, claimed to be 
the vicegerent of the gentle and spiritually minded 
Jesus. This church waxed Strong in temporal 
power and authority over the minds of mortals, 
but its spirituality caSt only a flickering gleam 
through the blackness of the Middle Ages. 

In the course of time generations of scholars 
arose, who pursued with great zeal the Study of 
the Bible ; but always from either a purely liter- 
ary Standpoint, or with the assumed limitations of 
Christianity guiding their efforts. Little was done 
by the thousands of theologians and expositors of 
the Bible to make its teachings pradtical in the 
sense that Jesus made practical his words when 
he unfolded the Truth of Being. The critical 
faculty in men's minds became acutely sensitive, 
and material theories were loudly demanded in 

170 



JEAN EVARTS 

support of spiritual truths. Dogma succeeded 
dogma, and dissensions waxed loud and bitter 
over trivial points of do6trine. Speculation over- 
leaped all bounds; extravagant theological con- 
ceptions became the diversion of the human mind ; 
and pageantry, pomp, and dead ceremony suc- 
ceeded living faith and its demonstrations. 
Schisms followed, the Holy Church was torn 
asunder, and protecting denominations fell to 
persecuting one another because of differences in 
interpretation of the letter of Christianity. 

The elements of religion as they are presented 
to us today in the orthodox faith include the con- 
ception of God as the Creator of all things. Out 
of the duSt of the ground He is supposed to have 
formed man in His own image and likeness. He 
constituted him Lord of the earth, and gave him 
the gift of free-will, the ability to choose between 
good and evil. But man soon abused this dubious 
gift, and thereby fell under the bondage of sin 
and death. God then covenants with him to par- 
don his sins, if he will fulfil certain conditions. A 
Messiah is promised, and in due time he comes as 
Jesus the Christ. The earlier idea of God as an 
angry Father, who demands the sacrifice of His 
Son in expiation of the world's sins, has largely 
been abandoned. Jesus makes his atonement vol- 
untarily, and as representative of the human race 
offers up to God expiation on behalf of all sinful 
men. God accepts this sacrifice, and establishes a 
material pledge of repentance, baptism with 
water. Sinners repent, are converted and bap- 

171 



THE DIARY OF 

tised, and then, by observing the rite of Com- 
munion, renew their covenant with God. Death 
is the penalty incurred by man for his wilful dis- 
obedience, for having been given the power to 
choose either good or evil, he chose evil. Death 
is not only for the body, but for the soul which 
does not repent and turn from its sinful practices. 
The consummation, whether of life or death, lies 
beyond the grave ; and the eternal future of man- 
kind follows a Judgment which Chriit will pass 
upon all men, for all mu£t appear before his 
throne on the Day of Judgment. This awful day 
is preceded by the general resurrection of the 
dead at Christ's second coming. Those who die 
impenitent will enter into eternal punishment; 
the redeemed receive the gift of immortality and 
unending bliss. The problems of evil and suffer- 
ing, how they can exi§t and continue to oppose the 
Almighty, are allowed to remain unsolved for us, 
in order to Stimulate faith. Affli6tions come upon 
us that we may be tried and purified through 
their disciplinary effe6ts. As to physical truths, 
God in His wisdom and goodness has left us to 
find these out by the use of the powers He has 
bestowed upon us, for by such research the human 
faculties are exercised and trained. 

Such, in brief, is the modern orthodox inter- 
pretation of the theology of Jesus. It is with the 
limitations imposed upon men by this orthodox 
theology that they have essayed to preach the 
gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Little 
wonder that the realm of the spiritual has re- 

172 



JEAN EVARTS 

mained a va§t region, unexplored, all but un- 
known, awaiting a discoverer with sufficient faith 
to penetrate beyond its shore line. 

With the loss of spirituality in the early cen- 
turies of the Christian era came also the loss of 
healing power, for healing is the process of re- 
moving from the human consciousness the con- 
cepts that have been formed there by false 
thought, and substituting true concepts for them. 
A va£t amount of thinking has been done about 
God, but it has been human thinking. In its at- 
tempts to define its concept of a personal God, the 
human mind has lo£t itself, as Spencer has said, 
in labyrinths of language and logic. Human 
thinking is not the a6tivity of God's thought, and 
does not reflect Him. Speculation is not thinking, 
for it is not based upon real knowledge. From 
the third century down to our own, men's thinking 
has been almost entirely speculative and along 
material lines. A mortal may claim to think about 
God, but as long as he is ignorant of the spiritual 
nature, not only of God, but of Man himself and 
the entire Universe, he is not thinking God's 
thoughts, and the activity that constitutes his con- 
sciousness is not the activity of true thought, and 
therefore does not reflect spirituality. Since God 
is omnipotent, every thought of His has Omnipo- 
tence back of it. Where it is, God is ; and where 
it is, false thought cannot be. It was this great 
truth that was loSt to men during the firSt three 
centuries after ChriSt. It was this great truth 
that was buried beneath the duSt and rubbish of 

173 



THE DIARY OF 

materialism and human speculation, hidden by 
the religious systems of the ages, the pantheistic 
forms of worship, the adoration of virgin and 
saints, and all the ceremonial and show that was 
massed high to mystify and astonish the credulous 
mortal mind and conceal the barrenness, the 
emptiness and dearth of real power within. 

During the many centuries that have passed 
since Jesus walked with men, the Truth that he 
taught has been ever present. He said, "Heaven 
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not 
pass away." Again, he knew whereof he spoke. 
From time to time there have been minds that 
have Struggled up through the debris of material 

thought sufficiently to catch some faint gleams of 
the Light of Truth, and to become convinced that 
it had never been extinguished, but that it was 
shining in all its fulness beyond the miSt that has 
darkened the face of the earth. 

Finally, in our own» day, there was found a 
mind so receptive of spiritual things that it 
caught the true import of Jesus 's teachings as no 
one since apostolic times has ever done. So at- 
tuned to the infinite Mind, so transparent and 
clear that the Light of Truth, impelled by the 
energy of the infinite Sun of Truth, was able to 
penetrate it, this consciousness became a refle6tor 
of divine reality to all the world about it. To 
mortal thought this mind was a woman. Like her 
fellow beings, she had early sought Grod. Like 
them, too, she had prayed to be delivered from the 
ills that had seemed to afflict her. The sublime 

174 



JEAN EVAETS 

faith that supported her in her search for Truth 
carried her even to the gateway of death; and 
there, with the darkness fa§t gathering around 
her, it lifted the veil of matter from before her 
eager vision and revealed the sublime Truth of 
the reality of God and the unreality and power- 
lessness of all that is unlike Him. 

All Truth comes from the Source of Truth to 
the human mind as a revelation. It does not come 
as testimony of the five physical senses ; nor can 
it find a permanent abiding place in the human 
consciousness until it has displaced its opposite 
falsity. The human mind, as we have said before, 
is inherently false, and could never by itself come 
to any knowledge of Truth. Jesus Stated this 
when he said, ' ' No man can come to me except the 
Father which hath sent me draw him. ' ' No man 
can come to Truth except God draw him. This 
does not imply any selective a6tion on God's part, 
as was so falsely believed for centuries in the par- 
alyzing do6trine of foreordination, but means 
simply that it is God himself who sends a knowl- 
edge of Truth into the darkened human mind. 
Paul says, "God, who commanded the light to 
shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, 
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Chri&t." And he adds, 
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, 
that the excellency of the power may be of God, 
and not of us." 

We have seen that mortals are complex in 
nature, for they simulate the infinite variety of 

175 



THE DIARY OF 

infinite Mind. They simulate all the attributes of 
Mind, and pose as its image and reflection. That 
their faculties are not all mortal is due to the 
great fa6t that Truth cannot be entirely obscured 
or prevented from penetrating even the density 
of mortal consciousness. Were God not at all 
present in the human mind, it would not have 
even a simulated existence. The human con- 
sciousness becomes aware through sense-percep- 
tion of the existence of Life, Truth, Mind, and in 
a feeble way it becomes capable of recognizing 
these things. This is the result of Truth at work 
in the human mind. Always it is Truth that enters 
the human mentality and begins its activity there, 
for the human mind has no power or ability of its 
own. The fir£t gleams of Truth having entered 
the mind, the work of expansion and emptying the 
consciousness of false thought is begun. This we 
call "grasping the Truth." But it implies no 
ability whatsoever on the part of the false human 
mentality. It is the Truth itself that does the 
work. But for the presence of what little Truth 
it may contain within itself, the human mind 
would be wholly mortal. The term "mortal mind" 
is applied, £tri6tly, to that part of the human con- 
sciousness that is false. But when human love, 
human reason, human desires, and human will 
come under the influence of divine Love, Under- 
standing, and Truth, the human elements dis- 
appear. It was such a mind as this, from which 
much of the merely human had disappeared, that 
recognized the spiritual significance of the teach- 

176 



JEAN EVARTS 

ings of Jesus, and that became the channel 
through which primitive Christianity was restored 
to mankind. 

If God is Spirit, omnipotent, omniscient, omni- 
present, and omnibeneficent, the only Cause and 
Creator, the Principle of all Being, Truth itself, 
it logically follows that He would create a Uni- 
verse that would refle6t His own characteristics, 
and not their opposites. The Universe and Man 
are therefore spiritual and eternal, not material 
and temporal. This is Truth, and if mortals will 
realize it and apply it persistently, all sin, sick- 
ness, death, and matter will gradually be put out 
of consciousness, and the mortal consciousness 
itself will cease to be, for all will then have "that 
Mind which was in ChriSt." Orthodox theology 
is a misinterpretation of Jesus 's teachings. God 
did create Man, and gave him absolute freedom, 
free-will in the truest sense of the term, the re- 
flexion of God's own free will. But since God is 
infinite Good, Man could not possibly exercise the 
faculty of free-will to the extent of knowing that 
which is not and could not be. Man can know God, 
but he cannot know anything else, for God is in- 
finite. If Man could know evil, God, as infinite 
Creator, mu&t have firSt created evil. But evil is 
error, the direcSt opposite of Truth. There is 
nothing in Truth out of which to make evil, for 
error cannot proceed from Truth. The world of 
human thought may believe that it can know evil, 
but ' ' The wisdom of the world is foolishness with 
God." 

177 



THE DIARY OF 

It was these truths that flowed into the clear, 
receptive mind that is known to mortals as Mary 
Baker Eddy; and it is the development of them, 
starting with the major premise of God's infini- 
tude, that she has given to mankind, in language 
that they can understand, in her book, Science and 
Health, With Key to the Scriptures. 

Again, we muSt remember that it is Truth with 
which we are vitally concerned, and not the chan- 
nel through which it may come to us. In reading 
a text book on mathematical subje6ls we are not 
concerned with the book itself, the channel 
through which its contents seem to be conveyed 
to us, but with the truth which we hope to find 
therein. It is not the historicity of the man Jesus 
that is vital to us, but what he taught. His per- 
sonal history would be interesting, and we would 
be glad to have it in detail, but the human con- 
cepts of his daily life are not essential, nor would 
they have the slightest bearing on the Truth which 
he was the means of bringing to the human con- 
sciousness. So, as she herself has frequently 
urged, Mrs. Eddy's personality and human his- 
tory, though of intereSt, have no bearing on the 
Truth which she has reStored to us. It is the 
Truth with which we are concerned; and we are 
urged to teSt it in the way she has tested it, and 
prove its nature, even as Paul admonished his 
followers to " prove all things." In reading a 
text book on mathematics we accept nothing with- 
out rigidly demonstrating its truth. Even so with 
the Truth Jesus taught, and which has been pre- 

178 



JEAN EVARTS 

sented to us again by Mrs. Eddy, we are asked to 
accept nothing without demonstrating its essen- 
tial nature. 

We have said that Truth comes to the human 
consciousness only as a revelation from the Source 
of Truth. The mind of the mathematician becomes 
so attuned to things mathematical that they flow 
into his consciousness as revelations of Truth. 
They were not in his consciousness before, nor 
wo aid the human consciousness ever contain them, 
did they not come in from without. That which 
flows into the human consciousness does so be- 
cause that consciousness is attuned to it. This is 
what has been Stated in various modern philos- 
ophies as "the law of attraction, like attracting 
like." It is the law of receptivity, for Truth is 
revealed to that mind which is receptive to it, and 
the degree of the revelation depends upon the de- 
gree of receptivity of the mind. 

The mind, or consciousness, that we know as 
Mrs. Eddy was receptive to things spiritual to a 
much greater degree than any other mind has 
been since the fir&t century after Chri&t. From 
childhood her mental activity had been such as to 
prepare her mind for the influx of Truth. The 
law operated, as it could not but operate, and the 
spiritual import of Jesus 's teachings came to her 
clearly. Like the impotent man whom Jesus 
healed, she rose from her bed restored to heali|i. 

Why this should seem astonishing to mankind 
is difficult to comprehend, when we are forced to 
admit that the mathematician, the musician, the 

179 



THE DIARY OF 

archite6t, the engineer, in f a6t, every conscientious 
searcher who succeeds in finding the Truth, arises 
from his work reStored, the Truth having cleared 
away from his consciousness all false concepts 
and erroneous thought that seemed to prevent 
him from solving his problem. The restoration 
which Truth effe6ts is manifested in the corre6t 
solution of the problem. 

Mrs. Eddy's problem was one of physical dis- 
ease ; but it was no less a problem for that reason. 
When she grasped the Principle of harmonious 
Being, Stated in terms of God's allness, and the 
consequent nothingness of whatever seems to be 
unlike Him, there was swept from her conscious- 
ness the false concepts of a power opposed to God ; 
and when they were gone the manifestation, the 
outward accompaniment, called disease, had to 
disappear likewise, for there remained nothing 
for it to reSt upon. 

An essential component of the human mind is 
the critical faculty. It never criticises what it 
understands, and therefore never criticises Truth. 
But it heaps criticism upon its concepts of things 
that do not accord with its own materialistic 
thought. It loudly denounces its own ideas of 
things that it does not understand. And when 
Mrs. Eddy joyfully announced to the world the 
great Truth that had come into her consciousness, 
the human mind Stood aghaSt at what it called her 
audacity. Had she been the one to announce the 
discovery of a so-called law of matter, the world 
would have acclaimed her. But to refute modern 

180 



JEAN EVARTS 

theological beliefs, to expose the hidden workings 
of the human consciousness, to assert the living 
presence of the ChriSt Principle in our own day, 
and, above all, to insist that disease and all the in- 
harmony of life could be eradicated by an intelli- 
gent application of that Principle, was a shock to 
the human mind that opened wide the portals of 
its wrath and called down upon the head of this 
good woman, whose heart was throbbing with love 
for poor, tired humanity, such vituperation and 
calumny as have fallen to the lot of no human 
being since the patient Jesus Stood before his re- 
vilers and prayed, "Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do. ' ' 

Again and again she claimed no power of her 
own. Again and again she said that of herself 
she could do nothing, but that it was the ChriSt 
Principle that healed the sick and raised the dying 
— in other words, that what she gave to the world 
was what had come into her consciousness as a 
revelation of Truth, and that, as Truth, the world 
could demonstrate its a6tuality. Insistently she 
urged that this was not another addition to the 
many human philosophies that have left mankind 
Stranded upon the sands of disappointed hopes. 
With the greatest clearness she pointed out the 
di£tin6tion between this and mesmerism, mental 
suggestion, hypnotism, man-made creeds, the mod- 
ern theological misinterpretations of Jesus 's the- 
ology, and all the mass of human beliefs that have 
infeSted the mortal consciousness and obscured 
the Light of Truth. Continually she directed the 

181 



THE DIAEY OF 

human thought away from herself to the teach- 
ings of Jesus, and urged that mankind follow her 
only as she followed him, and that every Step of 
the way should be proven. She herself proved 
the truth of this revelation, and called it the 
science of Christianity, or Christian Science. For 
if science is "ascertained truth or fa6ts," and if 
she had in her possession the ascertained truth or 
fa6ts regarding Christianity, she rightly named 
her discovery Christian Science. Tirelessly she 
labored to prove the truth of her revelation, and 
having done so, to State its Principle in such lan- 
guage as could be grasped by the human mind. 
The mission of her book in which she has done 
this may be Stated in Wyclif 's apt translation of 
Luke 1:77, "To zeue science and helthe to his 
puple : in remyssioun of hir synnes. ' ' 

What was her motive? Love. It was Love 
that filled her thought and inspired her deeds. It 
was Love that animated her words and made 
radiant her motives. It was Love that she re- 
flected to the weary world. It was Love that con- 
stituted her soul, hei life, the essence of her being. 
It was God himself, as Love, that was revealed in 
her pure thought, and it was His thought that she 
crystallized in the writings which she has given 
to her fellow men. Does Love inspire hatred and 
malice? Does Truth give rise to misunderstand- 
ings ? No, but Love and Truth Stir up their oppo- 
sites in the human mentality, in order to caSt 
them out. This, again, is the wonderful working 
of Love, that it reSts not until it has set the im- 

182 



JEAN EVARTS 

prisoned thought free and recast it in the mould 
of Truth. It was inevitable that Love and Truth 
should Stir up whatever of unreality lay hidden in 
the minds of mortals, to ca&t it out, that true con- 
cepts might be formed there and the "salvation 
of the Lord" appear. 

Her followers are those whom she has pointed 
away from herself to the living Christ. They are 
co-followers with her, co-workers in the great 
labor of reflecting infinite Mind. She bade men 
forget her, but remember Christ. She taught them 
to lean not upon her personality, but upon the 
infinite Truth that sustained her and all who caSt 
their burdens upon it. Her work was universal 
and for all mankind. It was for all time, for it 
was a restoration in the minds of men of the 
Christianity of Jesus, who said, " — but my words 
shall not pass away." She proved the truth of 
his words, and left the world infallible rules for 
doing likewise. Ignorant criticism and abuse and 
the haSty and narrow verdi6t of small minds are 
of as little avail now as in the time of Jesus. What 
applies to him applies with equal force to her : if 
she has told the truth, her teachings will Stand the 
teSt of demonstration. If what she has given to 
the world is not true, then it muSt fall under such 
teSt, and the cry of ' ' Great is Diana of the Ephes- 
ians" will not be necessary. 

*jfr jfc jfc jfc jfr jh 
tt w w w w ^n? 

"But, as Jesus told his followers that every 
man muSt do his own work, ' ' concluded my friend, 

183 



THE DIARY OF 

"so Mrs. Eddy has told mankind that salvation 
from the ills of humanity is individual, and muSt 
come through individual effort. To this end she 
has given the world her writings, and especially 
her book, Science and Health, With Key to the 
Scriptures, that each may learn for himself how 
to apply the infinite Principle to his own human 
needs. I have brought you a copy of this book. 
It contains the Statement of that revelation which 
we have been approaching in our talks, and to 
which we have finally come. I told you that all my 
talks were based upon it, and that when we had 
reached it we would turn back and place the credit 
where it belongs. All the understanding that I 
have of God as infinite Principle has been gained 
through a Study of this book. All that has been 
done for you through me as a channel for the 
manifestation of infinite Mind has been made pos- 
sible by whatever understanding I have of the 
teachings of Jesus as spiritually interpreted in 
this work. The terms which we have used in our 
talks to express God, such as Principle, Life, 
Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind, are the terms 
Mrs. Eddy firSt used, and you will find them in 
this book. All of the ideas which I have given you 
and which have been developed in our talks, and 
which will be further discussed until this message 
has been fully unfolded to you, have come from 
Mrs. Eddy's teachings, from her writings, or 
from the writings of her followers. All that I 
have said in leading up to this revelation has been 
to prepare you, in a measure, to receive it; for 

184 



JEAN EVARTS 

your thought was rebellious and resentful of 
things spiritual when I found you, and it seemed 
beSt to begin our talks with what you were willing 
to admit into your thought. And so we began to 
reason from effect back to cause, from the ma- 
terial phenomenon back to spiritual Cause, which, 
as we have seen, is much like reasoning from a 
moving picture back to the original. And yet, 
even on such a basis of reasoning, it seemed to us 
that we muSt admit the real Universe to be spirit- 
ual, mental, and its Creator to be infinite men- 
tality, divine Mind. 

Mrs. Eddy states her premise in what she has 
called the ' Scientific Statement of Being,' (Science 
and Health, page 468) as ' All is infinite Mind and 
its infinite Manifestation ; 9 and with this as a 
Starting point she reasons accurately from Cause 
to effe<5t, from God to His perfe6t, spiritual Uni- 
verse and spiritual Man. Having Stated the 
Principle and drawn her conclusions logically 
from it, she applied the supreme teSt, that of rigid 
demonstration, and proved the Truth of her major 
premise. 

You have learned enough of the Principle it 
interprets, and have seen enough of the working 
of this Principle, to enable you to read the book 
now without prejudice. The operation of the 
Principle has been revealed to you in restored 
health. From the day I found you here, hopeless 
and alone, I have used for you the understanding 
I have gained from this book, and the result has 
been that the former concept of disease which 

185 



THE DIAEY OF 

seemed to be manifesting itself in your conscious 
experience has given way to a better concept of 
health and greater freedom, and you have 
emerged in a degree from the bondage of false 
beliefs. 

Tonight read the firSt chapter, Prayer. I could 
tell you of cases where those suffering from seem- 
ingly incurable disease have seen their afflictions 
disappear, vanish into their native nothingness, 
while reading this chapter alone. I have seen the 
chains of life-long slavery to evil habits, to rack- 
ing pain from contorted members, to unspeakable 
agony from consuming bodies, drop from their 
vi6tims when the receptive thought had imbibed 
the spiritual import of this clear interpretation 
of true prayer. When you have read it I am sure 
you will understand why; when you have begun 
to sound its profound depths, I think you will 
begin to understand why it was that error of 
every name and nature fled before the mighty 
affirmations of God's allness which Jesus boldly 
voiced whenever confronted by manifestations 
of evil." 

The weStern sky had begun to spread an 
amber-crimson pathway for the sinking sun, and 
the guardian hills were drawing their purple 
mantles about them, as I Still sat absorbed in my 
thought of the wonderful experiences that had 
come into my life in the paSt few days. I was glad 
to be alone with my heart's rapture, to rejoice in 
the peace and serenity that seemed to hover in 
the fragrant air. Marvel of marvels, that I should 

186 



JEAN EVARTS 

be brought here to die, only to find Life itself! 
Wonder of wonders, that the Father who had 
seemed so far off should have met me here and 
folded me in His arms of love ! 

The soft light that Streamed upward in the 
wake of the departed sun suffused the gathering 
dusk with a golden glow, and faded ; the tree tops 
nodded sleepily in the dying breeze; the hum of 
inse6t life sank into a hush ; and the noises of the 
world became a memory. Yet I lingered in the 
serene solitude of my revery, as night deepened 
about me; and it was only when the searching 
moonbeams had found me out that I consented to 
turn homeward and leave the day sinking into 
slumber on the dewy hills. 



187 



MAY 23ED 



MAY 23ED 




T is not my intention to quote from 
Mrs. Eddy's writings, " said my 
friend, when we had seated our- 
selves on the ledge in the warm 
sunshine of the radiant spring 
morning, "with the thought of 
attempting any explanation or elaboration of her 
words. But it may be helpful to you as a beginner 
in the great task of working out your salvation if 
we can point out and emphasize some of the truths 
that she has developed in the work of proving the 
allness of God, infinite Good." 



From time immemorial, men have prayed to 
their concept of Deity. Jesus urged men to pray. 
In his remarkable discourse which we call the 
Sermon on the Mount, he had much to say on this 
subject. But he also said a great deal before he 
came to the question of prayer. He fir&t told his 
hearers that, except their righteousness exceeded 
that of the Scribes and Pharisees, they should in 
no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Eight- 
eousness is right conduct, based upon the cause of 
all condu6t, thinking. Therefore, unless men think 
right, they can not bring harmony into conscious 
experience. The right kind of thought about God 
leads to right prayer; but such thought contains 
no element of materiality, and therefore no selfish- 
ness. It is the kind of thought that does not limit 
God, either as regards His ability or willingness 
to bless mankind. The thought, therefore, that 

191 



THE DIARY OF 

enters into prayer mu§t be thought of God as 
omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni- 
beneficent. Such a God does not have to be 
pleaded with, nor in§tru6ted as to His duty toward 
mankind. He does not have to be told that His 
children need certain things, for He knows what 
they need, and, moreover, He has already sup- 
plied these needs. God could not be God if He 
had not already met every human need, every 
real need of man for that which will enable him 
to rise out of materiality, to i { put off the old man, 
and put on the new. ' ' To beg God to grant human 
desires is to "ask amiss/' The human mind may 
know what it wants, but it cannot know what it 
needs, for only Wisdom can know that. God 
operates according to Wisdom and true Knowl- 
edge, and not according to human opinions. And 
it is well for mankind that He does, for it is only 
a too common experience to find that if we had 
been given the things we prayed for in our ignor- 
ance and selfishness, we would have been made 
utterly miserable. 

Our conception of prayer has been changed by 
Mrs. Eddy from one of pleading to a prayer of 
affirmation, the affirmation that God is All-in-all, 
and that therefore our true wants are already 
supplied. Knowing that because of God's very 
nature our wants for that which is necessary are 
already supplied, results in this knowledge of 
supply becoming externalized in the human con- 
sciousness. It is the working of the same law 
that we spoke of many days ago. Every thought 

192 



JEAN EVARTS 

that enters the human consciousness tends to be- 
come externalized in experience. Therefore, 
thoughts of limitation, or of God's unwillingness 
to meet our real needs, only obscure the vision 
and leave us Still looking at- these falsities. Like 
the sun that is continually sending out its light in 
every direction, God is constantly pouring out 
supply of every sort upon all mankind. The sun 
cannot help shining ; and God cannot help pouring 
out blessings upon mankind, because He is infinite 
Good and muSt express Himself in the a6tivity 
of infinite goodness. But when clouds are over 
the earth, the sun's light is dimmed, and we re- 
ceive only a portion of it. So, when the human 
consciousness is obscured by clouds of false be- 
lief, God's infinite goodness reaches mankind only 
in small part. To limit our thought of God is to 
limit ourselves, and to bring out limitation in our 
conscious experience. 

True prayer, then, as Mrs. Eddy has taught 
us, is prayer of affirmation ; and such prayer is 
always answered by the working of the invariable 
law of externalization of thought. When Jesus 
said, "To him that hath shall be given," he Stated 
this law: that within the consciousness that holds 
the true idea of God's allness shall be external- 
ized supply in abundance for every real need. 
But righteousness muSt always precede prayer, 
right thinking muSt precede the externalization, 
even as Jesus 's discourse on righteousness pre- 
ceded his talk on prayer in the Sermon on the 
Mount. 

193 



THE DIAKY OF 

Another great truth that is brought out here 
is the part that gratitude plays in making prayer 
effective. When Jesus Stood at the tomb of Laz- 
arus he thanked God that his prayers were always 
heard. This was an expression of both under- 
Standing and gratitude. Simple, childlike, heart- 
felt gratitude for the priceless knowledge of God's 
allness, and the consequent unreality and power- 
lessness of all that seems to oppose Him — this of 
itself is enough to bring into conscious experience 
an answer to any prayer for the right supply to 
meet human needs. Paul said, "And be ye thank- 
ful. ' ' Ingratitude is unbelief. If we believed our 
heavenly Father to be all-powerful, and willing 
to meet our every real need, could we ever be 
ungrateful, and could we ever plead with Him to 
grant our selfish desires? 

James said, "The effectual fervent prayer of 
a righteous man availeth much." Such is the 
prayer of the right-thinking man. It is the 
affirmation of God's allness, the affirmation of 
Him as infinite Good, and is inspired by love and 
gratitude and absolute unselfishness. It is know- 
ing the Truth that Jesus said would result in 
man's freedom. He said as much when he made 
that remarkable Statement about prayer, ' * There- 
fore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire 
when ye pray believe that ye receive them, and ye 
shall have them." In other words, when you 
pray, know that there is no power opposed to 
infinite Good; know that the material obstruction 
which seems to Stand in the way is in reality only 

194 



JEAN EVAETS 

a thing of false thought, and therefore without 
poiver to injure or hold you. Such knowledge of 
God as the only reality will remove mountains of 
error. 

Paul admonished men to pray without ceasing. 
This means incessant affirmation of God's infini- 
tude, a seeing of God only, a knowledge of Man's 
spiritual nature, and a bringing out of the fruits 
of such knowledge within the human conscious- 
ness. Eight thinking is prayer ; and regardless of 
what we may seem to be doing in our daily rou- 
tine, the undercurrent of right thinking can go on 
uninterruptedly in our minds. We have the ability 
to distinguish between the real and the unreal, 
for we have the Principle that we can apply to 
make the necessary teSt — "By their fruits ye 
shall know them." Eight application of that 
Principle, based upon right thinking, is prayer in 
the truest sense of the word. 

It is on this basis that healing is accomplished 
through prayer. All the mighty works of Jesus 
were done through his perfe6t apprehension of 
true prayer. ' ' The prayer of faith shall save the 
sick," said the apoStle. Faith is understanding, 
not mere belief. And understanding is based upon 
real knowledge, or Truth. Such faith, under- 
Standing, is "the evidence of things not seen." 
Truth, entering the human consciousness, puts 
out false thought and belief, and these then cease 
to be externalized in the consciousness. The re- 
sult is a cure, for disease is the manifestation of 
discordant thought, whether that thought be seen, 

195 



THE DIARY OF 

held, before "the mind's eye," on the plane of 
"conscious awareness, " or whether it be lurking, 
unseen and unknown, in the darker recesses of 
the human mentality. This is the divine method 
of healing, the method of Jesus, the "prayer of 
the righteous." 

True prayer declares the ever-presence of God. 
It is the "word" of God declared to the human 
consciousness, the "two-edged sword" that is 
sent out into the human mind to hew down ' ' every 
plant that my Father hath not planted. ' } And, as 
the Word of God, it has God himself back of it. 
Therefore, it muSt be trusted, even as God himself 
is trusted. It mu&t receive our absolute confidence, 
for we have the authority of Jesus for knowing 
that the material ob£tru6tions which we pray to 
have removed from our experience in reality do 
not exiSt. We therefore mu&t expe6t all good from 
such prayer; and we are justified in having as 
much confidence in it as in the presence of God, 
for it is the presence of God declared. Nothing 
can hinder it or Stay its a6tion, for Omnipotence 
is back of it, and infinite Energy is urging it on to 
do the work expe6ted of it. Jesus said, "And 
when thou haSt shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
which is in secret : and thy Father which seeth in 
secret shall reward thee openly." Mrs. Eddy has 
taught us that this means shutting the door of the 
human mentality against all material sense of 
lack, or separation from God, infinite Good. It is 
knowing that there is no real material condition 
to be met and overcome; that there is no real, 

196 



JEAN EVARTS 

mysterious power to cope with and overthrow. It 
is knowing that seeming material things and con- 
ditions have only the power that the human mind 
is according to them in its thought. It is knowing 
that we can do all things if we do not limit God, 
and it is knowing that it is not ourselves, but the 
Christ Principle within us, that does all things. 
The open reward of such righteousness comes in 
the externalization of good in our conscious ex- 
perience. The one who prays in this way will see 
his prayer demonstrated or manifested in con- 
scious experience juSt to the extent that he is 
meeting God's demand for right thinking, and, 
consequently, right living. In other words, he 
will receive from such prayer juSt what he makes 
room for. His mental chamber muSt be emptied, 
at lea&t to some extent, before right ideas and 
concepts can find room there. 

Prayer can never change God. But it does 
change the mortal man. It does change and de- 
stroy the false sense of man. A mortal ? s faith 
does not Stimulate the Almighty, but it does break 
down within the mortal consciousness that which 
causes doubt of God's omnipotence. HoneSt prayer 
always changes the one who prays. The prayer 
of the righteous man brings the power of God, 
expressed in Truth, to bear upon his problems, 
and the difficulties are overcome and dissipated in 
proportion as he is conforming to God's spiritual 
laws. Such prayer opens his mentality to receive 
what God has already sent him, juSfc as opening 
the shutters of a dark room allows the sunlight to 

197 



THE DIARY OF 

flow in. Opening the shutters has no ef£e6t what- 
ever upon the sunlight, but it does have a marked 
ef£e6t upon the room. 

The mortal man exists as a witness to the 
seeming power of error. So we who have gained 
some knowledge of the infinitude of God are called 
upon to witness to this same unreal power. But 
we know that declaring the Word of God, bidding 
error get behind us, and persistently resisting it 
with Truth, as Jesus did, and not wrestling with 
it as a reality, it will eventually flee from us. Not 
that error has any power or intelligence that 
enables it to call upon mortals to witness to its 
reality, for it has no power, either as persons, 
environment, or things; it is but a false mental 
concept. But Truth in its activity Stirs up what- 
ever may seem to be opposed to it, or to deny its 
omnipotence, and in this way man is continually 
confronted with problems of every sort. But we 
know that the appearing of these problems is like- 
wise the appearing of splendid opportunities to 
demonstrate God's allness and Man's dominion. 
We know that every problem in itself implies the 
existence of that which will solve it, for back of 
every appearance there Stands the reality, and for 
every error there is the Truth that will deStroy 
it. By knowing the Truth, and persistently hold- 
ing to it, despite the so-called testimony of the 
five physical senses, despite human opinions and 
material beliefs, we know that human thinking 
will finally yield to the divine; and when that 

198 



JEAN EVARTS 

occurs the problem is solved and the corre6t 
answer becomes externalized in consciousness. 

Such, in brief, is the method given us for work- 
ing out our salvation. Again, it is but the "prayer 
of the righteous." It is knowing the reality and 
omnipotence of Truth, and the unreality and im- 
potence of error. To pray to God to save us from 
evil is to admit the actuality of evil, and to assume 
that God knows it to be real. For God to know 
evil would be for evil to be eternal. Therefore, to 
straggle against it would be utterly vain. This 
great Truth is well illustrated by the continued 
presence of evil in the world. The human race 
has for untold centuries searched for the origin 
of e\il. Fortunately foi* itself, it has never found 
it, for had it done so, it would have proved evil 
real, and hence immortal. Yet in the absence of 
such proof, men have believed it to be as real as 
Good, and have Striven for ages to overcome it on 
that basis. They have found their efforts futile. 
The origin of that which does not exiSt cannot be 
found. No real thing can be overcome on any 
basis whatsoever. The Statement that 2+2=4 is 
a very real thing, and there is no power in heaven 
or earth that can overcome it. The Statement that 
2+2=7 would seemingly have the same power if 
all men believed it. And believing it, men could 
never overcome it. They muSt firSt learn the 
Truth regarding it. For men to know evil is for 
them to become its servants, as Jesus said. To 
assume to know evil is to perpetuate its seeming 
existence, and to continue to see it manifested 

199 



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in all sorts of ways in conscious experience. To 
know that evil is the suppositional opposite 
of Good; to use common, every-day logic when 
we say that God is infinitely good, and not to 
add in the next breath that He made evil or 
permits its existence ; to know, as we really muSt 
know, that if God is infinite Good, and yet per- 
mits the existence of evil, He muSt himself 
be evil to the extent of permitting it to exiSt, is to 
begin to see the "problem of evil" in its true 
light and to take the firSt Steps toward solving 
it. The false thought of sin results in sinful mani- 
festations ; the false thought of disease results in 
manifestations of disease; the false thought of a 
real opposite to infinite Life results in the mani- 
festation called death ; and all this will go on and 
on, until mortals grasp the Truth of Being and 
clear their mentalities of the i l thieves and money 
changers' ' that have made such disorder there. 

Our prayer, to be true and effective, muSt 
always begin with God. The Allness of infinite 
Good is the major premise to all right reasoning 
when answering the false arguments of error. 
InStead of accepting theological Statements and 
human opinions regarding heaven and hell, sin 
and salvation, we take as our working premise 
the Truth of God's infinitude. Mrs. Eddy pointed 
out the way by firSt accepting this, and then de- 
ducing a religion that contains all the elements 
that Jesus said constituted true religion — the 
meeting of human needs, the healing of the sick, 
the binding up of broken hearts, and setting man- 
200 



JEAN EVARTS 

kind free to work out their complete salvation, 
even to the ultimate revealing of Man as God's 
image and likeness, without a single element of 
materiality. She has restored the loSt element of 
healing to Christianity, and has pointed men away 
from useless disputations concerning the mere 
letter of the Word, to a demonstration of its living 
Principle. She has corre6tly interpreted the 
greatest of the Commandments, "Thou shalt have 
no ether Gods before me, ' ' and has shown the dire 
results that follow the breaking of this imperative 
command. She has shown how all the forces of 
the Universe join with the man who is conscien- 
tiously seeking to do God's will. She has shown 
that the mortal man's failure to rid himself of the 
ills of this life is due to having mentally limited 
himself, because he has firSt mentally limited God. 
She has shown that, regardless of the so-called 
testimony of the physical senses, we are right here 
and now the children of God, even as the Apostle 
insisted we were, and she has shown us how this 
spiritual fe6t can be brought into manifestation. 
But she has likewise insisted that working out 
one's salvation is no child's play, but demands 
conStant work, ceaseless vigilance, and incessant 
prayer of the right kind. "Earth's preparatory 
school muSt be improved to the utmoSt," she has 
said, (Science and Health, page 486) and we are 
realizing the truth of this Statement. And yet she 
adds, "The warfare with one's self is grand." 
(Miscellaneous Writings, Obedience). For the 
warfare is always with one's self, even with the 

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sense of a personal self of mixed good and evil, 
the mortal self that counterfeits the real Man. 
And the arena in which the conflict takes place is 
always the human consciousness. 

Jesus said, "If any man will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and 
follow me." However the expression "deny him- 
self" may be interpreted, there is no question that 
the mortal man mu£t deny himself in the &tri6te§t 
sense of that word, if he would "put off the old 
man. ? ' He mu&t deny the seeming reality of him- 
self as a man of flesh and blood, a material body 
in which a mind dwells. He mu&t deny the reality 
of material man as the image and likeness of God, 
infinite Mind. He mu£t deny reality to evil, and 
to all modes of mortal thinking. Mortals have 
always believed in the existence of a universe, 
including man, which is material, temporal, and 
imperf e6t, and that catastrophe, poverty, sin, sick- 
ness, and death are very real things. The whole 
body of mortal thought, which Mrs. Eddy calls 
' i mortal mind, ' ' and which holds this belief in its 
various phases, is itself the supposed mind or 
intelligence opposed to God, that Jesus referred 
to as the "devil," or one evil. This "devil" is 
simply a mass of falsity. It is a liar, who abides 
not in the Truth, "because there is no truth in 
him." Mortal mind is the lie about everything 
that God is and has made. Therefore, it is "the 
prince of liars." Paul says our sicknesses and 
other troubles do not spring from flesh and blood, 
nor from our bodies, but come from "principali- 

202 



JEAN EVAKTS 

ties and powers, " from "the rulers of the dark- 
ness of this world, ' ' from ' ' spiritual wickedness in 
high places." From these proceed the "fiery darts 
of the wicked," and the "wiles of the devil," evil 
thoughts, which become manifested in our con- 
cepts of body as disease, in our business affairs 
as perplexity and disaster, and in our environ- 
ment as discord, poverty, and untoward condi- 
tions. All this Stuff which Paul referred to is 
simply false belief in mortal mind, or conscious- 
ness, and the world knows it as materialism, 
hypnotism, spiritualism, occultism, hatred, malice, 
envy, jealousy, revenge, ctoubt, discouragement, 
fear, and all evil. < 

Jesus 's method of casting out these things was 
firSt to deny them any real existence. When the 
asserted authority of this so-called mind is denied, 
it often seems to turn and try to rend the one who 
is being deceived by it. Once when Jesus caSt out 
the demon, or devil, of dumbness, it seemed to 
turn and rend the vi<5tim. But the seeming fury 
of evil is due only to its being Stirred up by Truth, 
as preliminary to its removal from consciousness. 

There is no more important task in the world, 
no greater work, no more profitable business, than 
to acquire the true understanding of God's allness, 
and evil's unreality. "Give me understanding, 
and I shall live," cried the wise man. The one 
who has true understanding has also a knowledge 
of the nature and seeming methods of evil. This 
knowledge, Truth, is the complete armor of God. 
As Paul expressed it, it consists of the breaStplate 

203 



THE DIARY OF 

of righteousness (right thinking) the girdle of 
Truth, the sandals of peace, the helmet of salva- 
tion, the shield of faith (understanding) and the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 
With this armor on, no man need fear evil in 
any form. 

The true understanding of the supposititious 
nature of mortal man answers the question of the 
ages: "Whence do I come, and whither am I 
going? " Mortal man is shown to be the product 
of mortal thought. The perpetuation of mortals 
results from the union of two mortal minds. It 
is another modus of false belief. The supposed 
union of two mortal minds gives rise to a third, 
partaking of their nature and "inheriting" many 
of their chara6teriStics. This is the Starting point 
of a manifestation of another mortal mind. As 
this resulting mortal mind has a definite begin- 
ning, so will it also have an ending, for whatever 
begins muSt likewise end — it cannot be perpetu- 
ated. This so-called new mind, supposedly result- 
ing from the union of two minds, had no previous 
existence. It is the result of the union of the two 
parent minds that formed it. Its so-called inher- 
ited chara<5teriStics, the supposed existence of 
which has given rise to the suppositional "law of 
heredity," are but the result of pre-natal mes- 
merism, and come from the supposititious parent 
minds themselves. This new mind, or man, de- 
velops as a consciousness, or thought-a6livity, and 
brings out in his conscious experience the fruit of 
his thinking. What he holds in thought becomes 

204 



JEAN EVAETS 

externalized in his consciousness, within himself, 
and this he reflects to those within the radius of 
his thought. The nature of his thought is de- 
pendent upon education, association, pre-natal 
mesmerism, and the influx of the thought that sur- 
rounds him. Fear, disease, and limitation thoughts 
are early taught him, and he grows to look upon 
these as realities. Having been put into his men- 
tality, they produce manifestations after their 
own kind in his conscious experience. This ex- 
perience is varied, and is determined absolutely 
by the kind of beliefs he holds. Finally, the be- 
liefs of old age, senility, and decay become exter- 
nalized, and the belief of death, the opposite of 
Life, at la&t manifests itself as a cessation of men- 
tal activity, and the man is said to die. If he has 
died in the orthodox faith, his fellow mortals be- 
lieve that he will be awakened beyond the portal 
of death, and that he will be made immortal, and 
will be transferred to a place of eternal bliss. To 
Stir his consciousness into renewed a6tivity this 
side of the imaginary gateway of death is believed 
impossible, unthinkable, despite the fa<5t that 
many of those who hold this belief admit that 
Jesus was able to do this very thing, and that he 
did do it, and told his followers that they would 
be able to do likewise, provided they kept his 
commandments. 

Such, in brief, is the life-hiStory of mortal 
man. Many days ago we asked what possible sal- 
vation there could be for this sort of man. Chris- 
tian Science has answered this question, likewise, 

205 



THE DIARY OF 

and has brought to mortals in the religion of 
Jesus a knowledge of the only salvation possible 
to them. Prayers of limitation, pleading and 
begging, have long since been proved ineffectual. 
As Mrs. Eddy has said, such prayer is asking God 
to be God, and is "vain repetition.'' Drugging 
and hygiene have been found to give relief only in 
proportion to the mortal's faith in them. Faith 
in drugs is aptly termed "bottled faith." The 
drugging system is an attempt to eradicate error 
with error, and depends for its existence upon the 
belief of life and intelligence in matter. Its effe6ts 
vary with the varying of faith in it; and this 
faith is confidence, or mere belief — never under- 
Standing. Matter, a thing of false thought, can 
have no life, nor can it be the expression of real 
Lifa, which knows no death. Even materialists 
now concede the ultimate basis of matter to be 
"superimposed layers of positive and negative 
electricity, " thus making the fundamental con- 
stituents of matter wholly immaterial, and there- 
fore mental. 

Christian Science says to the mortal conscious- 
ness that is Struggling with its false beliefs, "I 
will put my Spirit in you, saith the Lord, and ye 
shall live." It is the putting of the Spirit of 
Truth into the human consciousness that enables 
it to live, to caSt off its unreal self, and to uncover 
the real Man, the image and likeness of God. It 
is giving men the true knowledge of God, and 
then teaching them to acknowledge Him in all 
their ways, that is, to a6t-their-knowledge of Him 

206 



JEAN EVAETS 

in every walk of life. It is showing them why it 
is that "to be spiritually minded is life." It is 
proving the wonderful Truth of the Statement, 
"The Lord thy God in the mid&t of thee is 
mighty, 9 ? by showing what corredt thinking about 
God and Man will do for the human consciousness. 
It is daily proving that "there is nothing from 
without a man that can defile him," by showing 
that all the discord and unhappiness which mep. 
seem to experience is the logical result of their 
own false thinking. Finally, it is showing that 
the Kingdom of Heaven is within, when the con- 
sciousness has been cleared of its false thought- 
concepts, and God's thoughts have been permitted 
to enter and become a6tive there. 

No, sin and death have not been eliminated 
from conscious experience by the religion of Jesus 
as yet, for men are ju&t coming into a knowledge 
of the great Truth of God's allness, and the 
human mind can grasp it only by degrees, "line 
upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and 
there a little." The true knowledge is at conflict 
with the false sense of things, and men are so 
occupied with worldly affairs, with their false 
pleasures, and with that sort of labor which is not 
for meat, that they are only slowly giving atten- 
tion to this Truth which is destined to set them 
free. And even after the Light has begun to shine 
in the human consciousness, the false sense of 
things seems difficult to get rid of, because it is 
what has been believed and held to for so many 
centuries, and so many millions of men Still believe 

207 



THE DIARY OF 

it, and will continue to do so for a long time to 
come. Even though the Truth has begun to work 
in mortal consciousness, the mortal mentality is 
Still darkened by the mass of mortal thought that 
is seemingly everywhere, and men Still find them- 
selves beset with evil suggestions and thoughts, 
even after they know the Truth in part. 

But the leaven is at work. Thousands upon 
thousands of mortals have seen the curative and 
uplifting effe6ts of Christian Science; and, 
cheered by some faint glimpses of the glorious end 
to be attained, and knowing that "in due time ye 
shall reap, if ye faint not," they are persistently 
holding to the Truth and bringing out in conscious 
experience the fruits of their knowledge. In the 
order of elimination of false thinking from the 
human mind, sin and sickness go firSt. Then will 
follow death, and, finally, matter itself. In the 
process of redemption the human mind changes 
its beliefs, and beliefs of sin and sickness gradu- 
ally give way to better beliefs of health and good- 
ness. Because of its counterfeit nature, the mor- 
tal mind is essentially imitative, and repeats 
whatever is persistently held before it as a model. 
Holding the Truth constantly before it, we can 
lead it to gradually relinquish its hold on that 
which is false. Belief giving way to understanding 
at laSt, that day "which no man knoweth but the 
Father" will appear, and "we shall all be changed 
in the twinkling of an eye," "the heavens shall be 
rolled up as a scroll, ' ' the belief of matter as sub- 
Stance will go out, and God and His spiritual 

208 



JEAN EVARTS 

Creation, including Man in His image and like- 
ness, will Stand revealed in a glory and beauty 
that "eye hath, not seen nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man. ' ' 

If we are honestly trying to walk in the way 
Jesus pointed out, we will obey him and take no 
anxious thought for the morrow. We will live for 
today, and know that we are living in the eternal 
present. We will know time for what it is, a 
human concept only, and unknown to God. Know- 
ing that evil in reality has no power, and knowing 
that God has all power over the false belief of 
evil, we will lay aside fear and anxious dread, to- 
gether with all apprehension of loss, poverty, sick- 
ness, and death. With every problem, we will do 
our work, and leave the result to God. To be 
anxious for the morrow is to discredit Him. To 
lack faith in Him is to limit Him in thought, and 
to limit our thought of what He has already done 
for us. The invariable law of externalization will 
then cause this limiting thought to become exter- 
nalized in our conscious experience, and we will 
suffer from the very things that we are anxious 
about. Jesus indicated a great spiritual law when 
he bade men take no thought for the morrow. He 
also showed himself to be possessed of the great- 
est common sense. We know from daily experience 
that worry and apprehension never solve our 
problems, but, on the contrary, increase their dif- 
ficulty and do incalculable harm. Borrowing from 
the future is mere speculation. We never fear a 
reality. This is an utter impossibility. We never 

209 



THE DIARY OF 

fear real things, but only our thoughts of things. 
We never fear a disaster, but only our apprehen- 
sion of a disaster. It is never reality that makes 
us afraid, but only fear itself. In other words, 
we simply fear fear. Fear is never based upon 
real knowledge, and therefore is never based 
upon God. It is sin, and it will manifest itself as 
sin always does, in some form of limitation or 
discord, if we hold it in thought. Jesus knew 
this, and he always began his work with the ad- 
monition, "Be not afraid. " If God is Love, and 
if He is available to mankind, there is nothing to 
fear. To fear fear-thoughts is not even common 
sense. 

The great difficulty is that, while men profess 
to believe in the infinitude of God, in reality they 
do not expe<5t Him to help them out of their 
troubles. They rely either upon themselves, or 
upon mortal aid. That failing, they feel them- 
selves lo£t indeed. If they turn to God at all, it 
is usually as a la§t resort, or else they turn to Him 
with their minds filled with thoughts of limitation, 
of the reality of sickness and discord, and of the 
certain reality of their particular trouble from 
which they ask to be lifted. They beg God to 
liberate them; they plead with Him and protect 
the awful injustice of material laws which have 
resulted in their sufferings; but they fail to 
understand that their very attitude is one of 
"limiting the Holy One of Israel, " who has al- 
ready made them free and met their every need. 
210 



JEAN EVARTS 

Jesus has told us that unless we become as 
little children we shall in no wise enter into the 
Kingdom of Heaven. No more common sense 
Statement of Truth was ever made. The attitude 
of the child who goes to his parent for that which 
will meet his needs is one of faith that amounts 
to understanding. He knows that his parent loves 
him, and that he is able to meet the need. More- 
over, he knows that his parent will meet it, if he 
has not already done so. The child is not anxious 
for the morrow, nor does he plan and scheme for 
ways of meeting the problems that shall arise in 
the future. In his way he knows that there will 
be problems, but he likewise knows that they will 
be solved for him, and that he has only to Stand 
and see the solution made. He does not burden 
himself with responsibilities, nor limit himself by 
outlining and planning events and means, from 
which he will find that he muSt Struggle to free 
himself later. He does not regard himself as im- 
portant, in the sense of being necessary to the 
accomplishment of any purpose or work, and so 
doe.3 not entangle himself in the chains of person- 
ality, or personal sense. He knows that right 
now he is the son of one who is able and willing 
to give him all that he needs, and he reSts happy 
in this beautiful understanding. Everything that 
is pure and lovely pleases him. Wealth, as the 
world regards it, is unknown to his thought. A 
flower, a book, the sunlight, freedom — such things 
constitute his wealth. He knows nothing of the 
luSt of gold, nor the greed and avarice of material 

211 



THE DIARY OF 

accumulation. He knows nothing of selfish ambi- 
tion for place and power. He sees no evil. He 
knows that he lives in an atmosphere of love, and 
that his only task is to reflect that love in his 
daily life. 

Men of the world, materialists and hard busi- 
ness men, would openly scoff at such a picture. 
But deep in their hearts, when the toil and Strife 
of the day is over, and their weary bodies reSt 
for a brief hour before the Struggle begins anew, 
they turn — yes, every one of them turns — back to 
those dream-days of youth, to linger over such 
scenes of simple happiness as they have never 
known since they attained to that dubious State 
called manhood. With an unutterable longing 
they turn to those care-free days; and with 
greater honeSty than they manifest in their daily 
business dealings they confess that they would 
lay their earthly all, gold, lands, possessions of 
every sort, on the altar for a return to the inno- 
cence and bliss of childhood. 

When Jesus said that we muSt become as little 
children, he meant that we muSt return to a State 
of mental innocence and purity. Not that there 
muSt be any return to ignorance or helplessness, 
nor to childish and immature views, but that as 
regards our understanding of God as our infinite 
Father, and our absolute truSt and confidence in 
Him, we muSt emulate the child's attitude toward 
its earthly parent. Freeing the mind from 
thoughts of limitation prevents limitation from 
becoming a part of our conscious experience. And 
212 



JEAN EVAKTS 

so it is with every thought of evil, of discord, sick- 
ness, and even of death itself, for it will be found 
that death is but the thought or belief of death 
externalized in the human consciousness. 

Why should we permit thoughts of limitation 
to enter our minds, when Jesus showed that his 
tremendous power was based upon freedom from 
such thoughts ? Why should we doubt the Father, 
when Jesus showed us so plainly what the Father 
is? He said, "I and my Father are one," and, 
"Having seen me ye have seen the Father." Why 
do we not take him at his word and know that, 
having seen Jesus, we have indeed seen the 
Father? Jesus was the manifestation of love, 
tenderness, goodness, and irresistible power. He 
proved that he possessed these things by showing 
what he could do with them. Then he added that 
the Father was even greater than he, for it was 
the Father that was manifested through him. 
And finally he said that if we would follow his 
sayings, and do as he bade us do, we should prove 
the Truth of all he taught. What could be more 
dire6t and simple? And can anything more be 
done for us ? If a teacher gives his pupil the rule 
for solving a problem, is not the pupil provided 
with all that he needs for obtaining the corre6t 
result? God's work is done; and if we will Stop 
grumbling and complaining about unrealities, and 
will see in Jesus a reflection of the Father him- 
self, and will take Jesus at his word and begin to 
follow him, we can do our own work and bring out 

213 



THE DIARY OF 

harmony and perfection in our conscious experi- 
ence here in this world. 

Yes, it does mean being "made over." It does 
mean losing moSt of our present cherished con- 
cepts, nioSt of our present opinions, all of our 
mere hypotheses, our speculations and guesses; 
it does mean the loss of material pleasures, as 
well as material pains. But is not this juSt what 
the world is really Striving for? Is not the end 
to be attained worth the sacrifice? Paul thought 
so, when he said, "For I reckon that the suffer- 
ings of this present time are not worthy to be 
compared with the glory which shall be revealed 
in us. ' ' But he knew that that glory never could 
be revealed in a mind filled with thoughts of evil 
and power opposed to God. And so he set about 
emptying his mind of such thought, putting off 
the old man and putting on the new. 

And so we muSt Start with a change in the 
manner of our thinking. God muSt be all to us, or 
nothing — there is no half-way position. The so- 
called ironies of fate, sickness, loss, disaster, and 
chance, muSt be recognized as the produ6ts of 
false thinking, or thinking on a basis of ignor- 
ance. Either all is Spirit, or else all is matter. 
All is Good, or else all is evil — the two cannot 
exiSt as realities side by side. If we assume that 
God, Good, and evil coexist, but that Good is 
greater than evil, we make God responsible for 
the existence of evil, in that He permits it to exiSt, 
although being greater than evil, He could deStroy 
it. Hence, under this assumption, God, by allow- 

214 



JEAN EVARTS 

ing evil to exiSt, ceases to be Good, and we no 
longer have two powers, Good and evil, but one 
only, and that evil. 

If we assume that Good and evil exi&t as two 
equal but opposite powers, we assume an utterly 
impossible State of things, ju§t as impossible as to 
make light and darkness exi&t together. Under 
this assumption we would never see Good over- 
coming evil, nor evil overcoming Good, since these 
two powers would be equal and opposite. The 
human mind is unable to comprehend such a thing, 
ju§t as unable to comprehend it as to indicate the 
ef£e6t of an irresistible force meeting an abso- 
lutely immovable body. 

If we assume that Good and evil coexist, but 
that evil is greater than Good, we make evil re- 
sponsible for the continued existence of Good, and 
to that extent evil ceases to be evil and becomes 
Good. Hence the result is not two powers, one 
evil and the other Good, but one only, and that 
Good. 

If we assume that evil is all, and that Good 
does not exiSt, we fail to account for known fa6ts, 
unless we assume that what appears to be Good 
is but a seeming reality. 

The conclusion from this sort of reasoning is 
that there cannot be two powers, Good and evil. 
One of them muSt be an assumption, ju§t as we 
are forced to assume that either light is real and 
darkness is but the absence of light, and there- 
fore unreal, or vice versa. 

215 



THE DIARY OF 

A real thing is a reality forever, and can never 
cease to exi&t, nor can it ever be controverted or 
overcome. The principles, as they are called, of 
any real science, such as mathematics, can never 
be overthrown ; they remain the same throughout 
eternity. We may not understand them, and in 
our ignorance we may reach wrong conclusions. 
But the principles remain unaf£e6ted. Errors in 
mathematics are unreal, for they have no basis of 
principle upon which to re£t. They are simply 
misstatements of fa<5t. 

If a single evil condition can be overcome, it 
shows that the condition could not have been real, 
but mu&t have been a supposition, or seeming 
reality. If a single condition of real Good is 
overcome by evil, it shows that the Good was like- 
wise but a seeming. But if we assume that all is 
evil, and then attempt to work out our salvation 
on that basis, or even attempt to live harmonious 
lives on that as a working hypothesis, we make a 
sorry business of it, for the results that we obtain 
are sin, sickness, discord, and finally death and 
oblivion. But Jesus assumed that all was Good, 
and on that basis, the working hypothesis of the 
allness of God, he overcame every form of evil. 
What mu&t be the conclusion? Simply the same 
conclusion we always reach in solving a mathe- 
matical problem, namely, that the errors of exist- 
ence are unreal, and the Principle and corre6t 
solution are real and eternal. This is the con- 
clusion that Mrs. Eddy reached and proved to be 
corre6t. And those who are following in the way 

216 



JEAN EVARTS 

she has led are now proving it. The results they 
have already obtained show that the assumption 
that God, Good, is all, and that evil is nothing 
real, is being proved correct, and to the extent 
that it is so proved it ceases to be an assumption 
an6. becomes a fa6t. 

Either all is Spirit, or all is matter. But we 
know that all is not matter, for Truth, Mind, 
Power, Thought, Love, are not material. And as 
we enumerate these things which, after all, are 
the greatest things with which we have to do, 
matter dwindles in importance, until at la£t we 
find that about the only claim left for it is that of 
being substance. But matter cannot be substance, 
sub-§lare, that which underlies all things, for in 
every experience, such, for example, as building 
a house or writing an essay, that which always 
precedes the material manifestation is a mental 
a6tion. So about all we can say for matter is that 
it seems to be an expression of mentality. But, 
as matter expresses discord and error, it mu£t be 
the expression of an erroneous mentality — and an 
erroneous mentality is no mentality at all, but a 
claim of mentality, which is false, unreal, and 
therefore without power. 

Matter owes its very existence to sense-testi- 
mony ; and this so-called testimony we have found 
to be but the thoughts existing already within the 
human mentality. Matter never supplies, and 
never did supply, a single human need. Men are 
supposed to be surrounded by matter everywhere, 
and yet, with all this abundance of material things 

217 



THE DIARY OF 

about them, they Still continue to sicken, suffer, 
and die. The atomic Stru6ture is never substance. 
The substance of a silver dollar to the man who is 
cold and hungry is not the chemical composition 
of the material dollar, but its purchasing power, 
a mental thing. Nor is the food or coal that he 
may purchase with this dollar real substance, for 
these things alone have no power. He is seeking 
a mental State, a State of what he calls comfort 
and warmth and satisfaction, but none the less a 
mental State, a State of consciousness. And ma- 
terial ways of thinking have made the man believe 
that this mental State depends upon matter. But 
the real subStance that he seeks is never for a 
moment material, but wholly mental. It is a State 
of thought-a6tivity, or consciousness. 

The material concept, with all its varied phe- 
nomena, represents only what appears to mortals 
to exiSt in the absence of the spiritual, or divine 
concept. The material concept is a cheat, a fraud, 
a counterfeit, depending wholly upon human cred- 
ulity for its existence and power. The real Man 
is immaterial and eternal, not subject to space 
limitation or time changes. Space and time are 
neither cause nor effe6t, but merely limitation. 
Time has rightly been called "the greateSt cheat 
in human experience." AlmoSt every limitation 
circumscribing the efforts of mortals can be 
Stated in terms of time. But God's children are 
living and working in an infinite present, a present 
that is God-governed, and without beginning or 
ending, always with us. "Now is the accepted 

218 



JEAN EVAETS 

time," for the only real time there is is "Now," 
the present. The human concept of time has no 
place in infinite Mind, nor in the consciousness 
that refle6ts it. Old age, senility, decay, death, all 
follow as logical conclusions from the limiting 
premise of time as a reality. But we who are 
gaining the true understanding of God's infinitude 
are beginning to undo the evils that come from 
this false concept. We know that no time can be 
loSt, and that so-called age counts for nothing. 
For, if we Start right and persist, we know that 
God will make up to us all so-called loSt time, even 
as the prophet said, "I will restore to you the 
years that the locuSt hath eaten." 

Human salvation is brought about by a change 
of thought, and not by a change of matter. The 
material sense of life, this sense of personality 
which we call the body, is the seat of all our evil 
propensities. All evil finds its origin in one or 
more of the five so-called physical senses; and 
these, as we have seen, are but the outer accom- 
paniment of mortal thinking. The human body 
is a human or mortal mind belief. It is a thing of 
thought, existing within the human thought- 
a<5tivity which we call consciousness. There is no 
more reason for believing that life depends upon 
the body than there is for believing that it depends 
upon any of the other thought-obje6ts that are 
posited within consciousness. That the body is 
formed and made up of thought is shown by its 
changing under a changed thought regarding it. 
The State of consciousness in which the fleshly 

219 



THE DIARY OF 

body has its exigence as a material object may be 
"transformed by the renewing of your mind," 
and is being so transformed daily by those who 
have gained sufficient understanding of these 
things to effect such a change. It is because the 
human body is a thing of thought that Jesus was 
able to control it at will, working those deeds 
which the world so ignorantly calls miracles, but 
which we are now learning were, as a contempor- 
ary writer clearly phrases it, "expressions of 
God's law made conceivable to the human senses.' ' 
It is ju§t because matter is a thing of thought, a 
mental concept, that Jesus was able to walk on 
the water and pass through closed doors. The 
so-called law that the human body shall sink in 
water, or shall not pass through another material 
obje6t, is not of God's making, but is an enactment 
of mortal belief, a supposititious law that Jesus 
could and did annul by knowing the Truth. If 
God had created this fleshly man, we could not put 
him off. But having proje<5ted him out of our own 
thinking, and existing as he does only in con- 
sciousness, thought-a6tivity, we can put him off by 
attaining a spiritual consciousness. This is the 
way pointed out by Jesus. This is being born 
again. Mortal life is a false sense of life. It is 
the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus 
said that to be spiritually minded is life. He 
knew that life is not a breathing and eating 
process, but a process of knowing — in other 
words, he knew that conscious existence is what 
men call life, and that the quality of consciousness 
220 



JEAN EVARTS 

depends upon the quality of thought that is a6tive 
in forming it. To know — to understand — is to 
live. To have perfe6t health, abundance, and har- 
mony, we mu&t live spiritually, not materially, and 
we muSt give up our cherished beliefs in matter 
and evil. We mu£t know and have but the one 
God, "to know whom is life eternal." 

To assume that knowledge depends upon the 
vibrations of a few pieces of flesh within certain 
brain centers, is utter folly, pitiable ignorance. 
The mortal man sees, hears, smells, ta§ies, and 
feels only his own thoughts, and as he thinks so 
is he. If he thinks he can succeed in an under- 
taking, he builds success out of his thoughts. If 
he limits his success in any direction, he brings 
out the fruit of such limitation in conscious exper- 
ience. The laws of limitation which hedge man- 
kind about and which prevent them from reaching 
their ideals are of human origin, and have only 
the sanction of human belief. It is the things that 
the mortal man affirms about himself and his 
world around him that show what he is holding 
in his thought, and these he is constantly bring- 
ing out in his conscious experience. Jesus once 
said, "But I say unto you, that every idle word 
that men speak, they shall give account thereof in 
the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt 
be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con- 
demned. ' ' If we think and voice failure, disease, 
loss and lack, these will become manifested in our 
conscious experience. We give account of them 
in the "day of judgment/' the day and hour when 

221 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

these things, according to the law of externaliza- 
tion of thought, manifest themselves as claims of 
evil, having the reality that we have given them. 

M. M. -Si. Jb M. Jf. Jg. 

^ W *Jv» *«• "JV - •7S' "Jv* 

" You will find," he added, "that the day of 
judgment is every day, until the la§t claim of 
power apart from God has been overcome and put 
out. Truth Stirs up all that seems to be opposed 
to it, and so you may consider that eyery experi- 
ence is given you for the purpose of demonstrating 
God's allness and Man's dominion. But remem- 
ber that you are Love's idea, and as such you 
never can be touched by error, for error is not of 
God, and has no power. ' ' 



222 



MAY 24TH 



MAY 24TH 




OU have asked why the Christian 
churches do not at once accept the 
Truth that Mrs. Eddy has given 
to the world/ ' said my friend, as 
I was preparing for today's part 
of his message. "In reply I think 
we may again cite the Law of Receptivity, which 
we have discussed to some extent in reference to 
the human mind. Truth enters that mentality 
which is receptive to it. Error does likewise. The 
human mind becomes receptive to Truth only as 
it empties itself to some extent of prejudice and 
erroneous beliefs. On this point Mrs. Eddy has 
said, "Mu&t Christian Science come through the 
Christian churches as some persons insist? This 
Science has come already, after the manner of 
God's appointing, but the churches seem not 
ready to receive it, according to the Scriptural 
saying, 'He came unto his own, and his own re- 
ceived him not. ' Jesus once said : 'I thank Thee, 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou 
ha&t hid these things from the wise and prudent, 
and ha&t revealed them unto babes: even so, 
Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.' As 
aforetime, the spirit of the Christ, which taketh 
away the ceremonies and doctrines of men, is not 
accepted until the hearts of men are made ready 
for it." (Science and Health, page 131.) 



If the Church had held to the spirit of the 
teachings of Jesus, and had been satisfied to re- 

225 



THE DIARY OF 

main as unorthodox as he, it would not have fallen 
into its present State of confusion. If Jesus, by 
precept and example, taught the non-exiStence of 
matter as real substance, what warrant has the 
Christian church ever had for preaching its 
anthropomorphic do6trine of a spiritual Creator 
and a material creation? If this is an age of re- 
ligious skepticism and confusion, it is because the 
expanding human thought is becoming weary of 
the diet of husks that has been fed to it in the 
name of Christianity for a thousand years. 
Hungering for Truth, yet in a State of unpre- 
paredness for its reception, the human mind has 
"sought out many inventions," and it finds itself 
today gorged with its own hypotheses and inter- 
pretations. These failing to Stand the teSt of 
genuineness, it has plunged into an excess of ma- 
terialism, to such an extent that our present cen- 
tury witnesses an almoSt unprecedented develop- 
ment of the luSt of pleasure and worldly gain. 
Mortals are driven with the business of material 
accumulation; they work with desperation be- 
neath the lash of their own self-imposed laws. 
With the religious demand unsatisfied by the con- 
fusion of books and voices, the myriad advices 
and opinions, warnings and spurs, conflicting and 
tormenting, that have been offered to it in the 
name of ChriSt, the human mind is turning 
againSt the beliefs of its fathers, and now seems 
about to throw aside everything that does not 
bear the Stamp of crass materialism, or that does 

226 



JEAN EVARTS 

not promise to satisfy, in part at leaSt, its craving 
for material pleasures and power. 

The Christian church, clinging tenaciously to 
ancient systems of dogma and ceremonialism, is 
powerless to check the Stir within the human mind. 
Human thought is expanding under the Stimulus 
of a divinely inspired desire for Truth; but the 
Christian church, holding to its effete traditions, 
jealous of its syStems of faith, and shaken with 
dread leSt it lose its monopoly of religious truth, 
regards this desire with suspicion, and opposes 
itself to it — with the inevitable result that it muSt 
either throw off its own limitations, or be swept 
aside. 

The Bible has been said to be a record of the 
development of the concept of God in the human 
mind. It records both the progress and the errors 
that attended this unfoldment. Early in the his- 
tory of the Jewish religion it ceased to be re- 
garded as a collection of records, and became a 
unit, whose sole author was declared to be God. 
The Helvetic Confession of Faith went to the 
extreme of announcing that the words, letters, and 
even the marks of pun6tuation which formed the 
book were all directly inspired by Him. The Bible, 
under this limiting thought, became infallible 
upon every subje6t, from the creation of man out 
of the duSt of the ground, to the unveiling of the 
New Jerusalem, as recorded in the book of Reve- 
lation. 

The dogma of infallibility has given rise to the 
moSt extravagant beliefs and conceptions of the 

227 



THE DIARY OF 

human mind ; and these, as has been tersely said, 
"grew up under every kind of influence except 
that of genuine evidence." The letter of Chris- 
tianity, grafted upon the decaying Stock of 
Rome's former paganism, blossomed anew as a 
religious system, and flourished for centuries, 
until its merciless tyranny and awful corruption 
finally rent it asunder, and gave rise to what 
promised to be a better conception of the mission 
and teachings of Jesus. 

But the Christian church that today assumes 
to evangelize the world through preaching the 
message of Jesus, has deadened her influence by 
her own self-imposed limitations. She preaches 
a faith that is largely without vitality, and her 
creeds lack the demonstrative force of living 
Truth. She is blind to the fa6t that true religion 
is not expressed in denominationalism and sectar- 
ianism, and that in drawing the sharp line that 
she does between the religious and the secular, 
she has placed herself in an attitude of prejudice 
and suspicion toward new revelations that is fatal 
to her own claims. 

Mankind hunger for Grod. The human mind 
is aware of that within it "which makes for right- 
eousness" — a something that is drawing the whole 
world upward. Its heart-hunger is expressed in 
a reStless search for the means of satisfying its 
desires for the permanent and true. It rightly 
regards these desires as prophetic of that which 
will meet them. It turns to the Christian church, 
and asks for a living, ever-present God, a Father 

228 



JEAN EVABTS 

who is immanent, and who will love mankind, care 
for them, and heal their diseases. The Church 
holds out promises of a life beyond the grave, con- 
tingent upon certain conditions to be met here; 
but it offers little surcease from sorrow, sickness 
or misery this side of the gateway of death. Mor- 
tals are left to infer that God himself made a 
mistake at the beginning of things, and was forced 
to invent a scheme to redeem His own failure. 

But if God mi&takes, what hope is there for 
man? What does the WeStminSter Confession 
avail the honest mind that is seeking to know and 
manifest Truth in this life? What does the 
majesty of the Infinite mean to the man who be- 
holds the tawdry earth-trappings, the smoke of 
incense, and the painted images that are employed 
in His worship? What love for the Creator do 
the thought-fossils of foreordination, original sin, 
and the fall of man inspire in the human breast? 
Is it Strange that, in the absence of higher ideals, 
mortal man turns to the love of gold and the fleet- 
ing material pleasures that give him at leaSt a 
moment's forgetfulness of his doom? 

With God there is no respe6t of persons. The 
restoration of the spiritual import of the teach- 
ings of Jesus has not come through the Christian 
church for the obvious reason that she was not 
prepared for such a revelation. Her feeble faith, 
her lack of spiritual understanding, her fixed be- 
lief in sentient matter and the power of evil, her 
materializing theology and speculations, her Stub- 
bornness and prejudice in the face of new revela- 

229 



THE DIARY OF 

tions and the discovery of scientific truths, her 
coldness toward the poor in spirit and her syco- 
phantic amiability toward the wealthy and re- 
spectable — these are but a few of the obstacles 
that have barred her door againSt the inflow of 
Truth. 

The human mind into which the desire for 
Truth has penetrated wearies of being told that 
the children of God are miserable sinners, worms 
of the earth, outcasts through the fall of a myth- 
ical Adam. It wearies of centuries of vain wan- 
dering amid the fogs of error. It Strives to shake 
off the drag of hereditary beliefs and false educa- 
tion, and rise, here and now, into a larger freedom 
of thought and a<5tion. 

The Psalmist has said, ' 6 The Lord is nigh unto 
all them that call upon him, to all that call upon 
him in truth. " It seems as if it were almost by 
an afterthought that he added the vital Statement 
that the calling upon the Lord muSt be made in 
truth. But the Christian church has shut her eyes 
to any but her own interpretations of Truth. Be- 
cause she has substituted materiality for spirit- 
uality, she has lo&t the power to heal the sick. Be- 
cause she can not comprehend the non-exiStence 
of matter, she denies the fa6t. Yet Jesus, whose 
teachings she assumes to interpret, plainly showed 
that the material senses do not testify of Truth; 
and scientific methods today demand that one's 
conclusions be founded on something more sub- 
stantial than the evidence of the physical senses. 
Th* unreality of the material concept was hinted 

230 



JEAN EVARTS 

at centuries ago by Plato, who propounded the 
theory that ideas, or ab£tra6t forms, are the only 
realities, and that the things which are abstracted 
from these forms are mere shams. In speaking 
of this earthly life he calls it the dream of a soul 
walking among images. But Plato is a pagan; 
and the hungry soul that turns from the chaff of 
theological dogma is a heretic! 

The confusion of life that is so apparent today 
results from the human mind's ceaseless endeavor 
to reach a corre6t concept of that which consti- 
tutes Reality. It mu£t have some sort of ideal — 
it mu&t imitate something — for its nature is a sim- 
ulation of the divine nature of God himself. It 
will follow that which is held before it until it 
either rises higher, and in a degree out of itself — 
or falls into the ditch. In the seeming absence of 
the true understanding of God, men dissipate 
their energies in a selfish scramble for material 
possessions — even though they know that these 
will not yield lasting satisfaction. Leaving the 
spiritual nature to atrophy beneath the debris of 
materialism, they wear themselves out in life's 
drudgery, monotony, and utter purposelessness. 

Religion has been sadly misinterpreted to the 
human mind. It is more than feeble sentiment, 
more than restraint of inclination or in£tin6t — it is 
vastly more than resignation and subordination 
to material concepts. It is that which binds men 
to Life itself; it is the core, the heart, the soul, the 
very essence of man — it is the Principle of the 
Universe — Love. It cannot be compressed into 

231 



THE DIARY OF 

creed or dogma, nor narrowed into selfish syStems 
of faith — it cannot be monopolized by se6t or cult 
— nor can all the barriers of human prejudice and 
false belief that fill the material concept of the 
universe keep it from entering the human mind 
and driving out the thieves and money changers 
that have made it their abode. It is true religion 
— -Love — that is at work in the human conscious- 
ness, stirring ancient errors to their very founda- 
tions, that it may caSt them out and give their 
places to true concepts of God and His infinite 
manifestation. It is Love — that "something not 
ourselves ' ' within us — that is drawing the human 
mind upward — up, up, until its shackles fall, its 
fetters loosen, and its errors melt — up, out of 
itself, out of every thought of power opposed to 
God, out of every belief of God as the creator of 
an imperfe6t universe and a man that could fall 
— up into a realization of those things which God 
has prepared for us, which have been from the 
beginning, where the light of Truth reveals Man 
as the immortal image and likeness of Spirit, the 
Father himself. 

Mankind's problems are spiritual, not ma- 
terial ; and so the world turns to the Christian 
church for guidance. But this church, as its 
supreme spiritual leader, has Stubbornly refused 
to share in the expansion of the human mind — an 
expansion, under the Stimulus of Truth, which is 
deStined to dematerialize the world's thought. 
Ecclesiastical vision has been sadly awry. God 
does not work through fear and ignorance to 

232 



JEAN EVARTS 

frighten His children into the Kingdom — He is 
not cajoled or wheedled by flattery — He is not de- 
ceived by Hypocrisy — nor is He coaxed into open- 
ing the gates of Purgatory by the chanting of 
masses. The evangelization of the world is a 
noble ideal ; but how shall men make true progress 
if they muSt eventually unlearn such wild ex- 
travagances as these, that are Still taught in the 
name of religion? The Christian church has per- 
sisted through nineteen centuries because, in its 
slow progression and unpreparedness for the 
rapid reception of Truth, the human mind has de- 
manded a spiritual leader — has demanded a sys- 
tem of religious thought that would minister to 
its hopes and fears — has demanded an outlet 
through which to express its religious inStin<5t — 
and because, greater than these, it constituted the 
Christian church euStodian of the letter of the 
Word, believing that it would itself some day rise 
into a greater spiritual understanding of its im- 
port — believing, too, that through the ministra- 
tions of the Church it would be prepared for the 
fulfilment of the promised second coming of the 
ChriSt. 

A syStem that depends upon human credulity 
for its existence muSt fall when that credulity 
yields to understanding. The desire for true 
growth which is a6tive within the human con- 
sciousness can be satisfied only by fulfilling God's 
law of progress. We approach that which we 
worship. If our model be infinite Mind, we move 
toward it, leaving behind us shrine and temple, 

233 



THE DIARY OF 

smoking incense and carven image, droning prieSt 
and chanting prelate ; we turn from the mystery of 
evil to the simplicity of Good ; we accept the com- 
prehensive account of the Creation as given by 
the Pentateuchal writer, who records that "God 
saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it 
was very good;" we reje6t the Statement of the 
material concept of creation, wherein the Jewish 
tribal sense of Deity formed man out of the duSt 
of the ground and prepared him for an inevitable 
fall ; we realize the two-fold chara6ter of the book 
of Genesis, the account of the spiritual creation, 
and the succeeding Statement of its counterfeit, 
the human misapprehension of what God had 
done; we know that the materialistic account is 
the "Adam-dream," the "miSt" which has be- 
fogged the centuries, and which Still clouds the 
human sense as "the same veil untaken away;" 
we know that the carnal mind is created out of 
the duSt, and therefore cleaves to materialism ; we 
know that Jesus 's teachings set forth this view, 
and that he indicated the solution of the problem 
of life in a substitution of Truth for fi6tion — Good 
for the false sense of evil. He voiced the real, in 
the face of opposing human opinion; and he 
proved his words by his deeds. He knew that his 
works were in violation of so-called physical laws ; 
but he showed them to reSt squarely upon the im- 
manence of God as infinite Good. 

To overcome evil, the human mind muSt know 
that it is unreal. But to accept the truth of the 
unreality of evil does not imply any license to in- 

234 



JEAN EVAETS 

dulge the sense of evil on the basis of its nothing- 
ness ; for indulgence of evil is an assertion of its 
reality. Nor does the acceptance of the truth of 
the unreal nature of evil justify mankind in ignor- 
ing it. Evil, though possessing no reality or 
power of its own, is nevertheless accorded these 
qualities by the* human mind ; and to get rid of 
the sense of evil calls for vigorous work, based 
upon true knowledge, and sustained by a faith 
that amounts to understanding. Centuries of be- 
lief in the vicarious atonement of Jesus have not 
eradicated sin and discord from human experi- 
ence; and hundreds of se6ts and denominations, 
with their myriad creeds and ceremonies, their 
antagonisms and foolish jealousies, have left man- 
kind far removed from the spiritual sense of their 
Creator, with the veil Still untaken away. 

Life on the human plane is what we are alive 
to — the things that we are conscious of make up 
our conscious existence. The shaping of con- 
sciousness is a function of our receptivity, and it 
becomes a thing of beauty and rational progres- 
sion, or a thing of shame and retrogression, as we 
are open to the influence of Truth or error. To 
be alive to the things of the carnal mind is to be 
spiritually dead — and that is death indeed! To 
cling to the Jehovi&tic concept of God is to lose 
the concept of Him as Love. To believe in matter 
as substance is to deny the reality of Spirit. There 
is no obStru6tion in the upward pathway of man- 
kind except the universal pantheism of the belief 
in a power opposed to God. This belief has given 

235 



THE DIARY OF 

power and life to matter in human thought, and 
has created an environment of malign influences 
that beset the mortal on every side. The human 
mind, thus self -infected, drags out a weary exist- 
ence of death in life, turning hopelessly to creed 
and do6trine, to physician and soothsayer, know- 
ing that it bears its doom Stamped plainly across 
it, which no human means can avert. 

But again through the darkness of human be- 
lief is heard the clarion call: Awake! ye that 
slumber, and Christ shall give you light! For 
why will ye die! The pure Christianity of the 
Christ is again revealed to the world, and all who 
will may understand and live ! 

The Statement of the ChriSt Principle which 
has been given us by Mrs. Eddy has not come 
through the Christian churches — but the world is 
responding to its gentle influence. The ChriSt 
has not appeared in the skies, with a blare of 
trumpets and a display of earthly pomp — but it 
has been revealed as ever-present Good, the Love 
that has penetrated the density of human thought 
and rekindled the flame of spiritual understand- 
ing. It comes as a disturber of comfortable con- 
ventions and liStless conformity — but only that 
the tares within the human mind may be rooted up 
and consumed. 

Neither prelate nor do6tor has ever discovered 
any logical reason why human beings should die 
— they kill themselves with their false beliefs. 
Death is not a cessation of Life, but a Stoppage of 
the simulated a6tivity of false thought which con- 

236 



JEAN EVARTS 

Stitutes the human consciousness. Mortals yield 
to their self-imposed laws of life in matter — and 
then receive the wages of their sin, death. Life 
is infinite, and cannot be reduced to the finite. 
The human sense of life is a series of States of 
consciousness, and its pains and pleasures are 
but links in the chain. The emptiness of the Nir- 
vana of the Buddhistic despiser of the world is no 
greater than the emptiness of the mortal sense of 
life. The finite human mind believes that all 
things have had a beginning, and that God created 
a universe of matter out of nothingness. It is 
true, the material universe has been created out 
of nothingness, and it manifests the evanescent 
nature of its component. But its creator is mor- 
tal mind itself — a perverted sense of things that 
misinterprets Spirit as matter, and counterfeits 
the law of spiritual gravitation in the human law 
of heredity, the drag of the ages, embodying the 
sins of all our ancestors, and making the helpless 
babe of today partaker of the doom of the legend- 
ary Adam! 

The true plan of Redemption is a6tual con- 
version of the human mind — a re-making of the 
human consciousness that results in its yielding 
in every particular to the Divine. The mortal and 
his environment are not to be moulded and re- 
shaped, but a<5tually transformed by the renewing 
of the mind. To master one's environment is, as 
has been frequently said, to have the world — nay, 
the universe — in one's grasp. But we may be 
sure that the grasp of the spiritual universe will 

237 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

remain impossible to that consciousness in which 
there is the slightest taint of materiality; while 
to grasp the material concept of the universe is 
but to see it turn to ashes and vanish into its 
native nothingness. 



.!■*. .tf. -V. •!£. H. 

W W W TV* •¥¥• 



"The human race is progressing/ 9 he said, as 
he concluded his talk for the day ; l ' its moral tem- 
perature is rising — it has got to rise, for there is 
that at work in the human mentality which is 
destined to effect its complete transformation, by 
lifting it out of itself. The revelation of the 
spiritual import of the teachings of Jesus has 
already come, and nothing can be gained by re- 
sisting it on the ground that it did not come 
through the human mind 's established Church. It 
came as God himself willed that it should ; and it 
is teaching men that the Lord is available to all 
them that call upon Him in Truth. As in the firSt 
century of our era, so today, honesty, loyalty, and 
unswerving adherence to the demonstrable Chris- 
tianity of Jesus reveal the Father as that ever- 
present Love which meets all real needs of the 
human mind to effe6t the transformation which 
awaits it." 



238 



MAY 25TH 




MAY 25TH 

E have had much to say about the 
human mind, so-called," said my 
friend, after he had greeted me 
this morning and seated himself 
at my side; "and we have sought 
to show how in his every-day life 
mortal man does not see real things, but only his 
thoughts of things. To this is due his resistance 
to all that lies beyond the range of his limited 
vision. Today we shall consider some of the 
criticisms which the world has dire6ted againSt 
the truths we have been discussing, and shall try 
to show that denial of spiritual reality has arisen 
solely from the finite human mind's lack of com- 
prehension." 



The resistance which the human mind seems 
to offer to the spiritual import of the teachings of 
Jesus as given to the world by Mrs. Eddy varies 
with the density of this so-called mind's ignorance 
regarding itself and the nature of the divine Mind 
and the spiritual Creation, including Man as 
God's reflection. No man has ever been criticised 
as Jesus was, and if the spirit of the present age 
seems more tolerant it is because mankind in the 
intervening centuries have advanced at lea&t a de- 
gree out of the dense materialism of the Augu&tan 
era. But in a consideration of some of the criti- 
cisms that have been directed againSt the Science 
of Christianity we muSt keep clearly in thought 
the fa6t that whatever is real is always above 

241 



THE DIARY OF 

criticism, and that the human mind does not criti- 
cise real things, but only its concepts of things. 
Its criticisms are directed solely against its own 
mental pictures, or interpretations, of realities. 
These interpretations are made within its spur- 
ious mental activity under the influences of her- 
edity, education, human opinion, and the supposed 
testimony of the five physical senses. 

Criticisms against the "transcendentalism" or 
"ultra-idealism" of the Science of Christianity, 
as formulated by Mrs. Eddy, arise from the 
human mind's resistance to the premise that all 
things are mental. To this mind the mental nature 
of a supposedly solid material object is gross 
absurdity. But when called upon to explain the 
true nature of matter it confesses its utter help- 
lessness — and the realm of the mental is to it a no 
less unexplored and unmapped region. Mankind 
accept what to them is obvious, what they think 
they see about them, and approve the method 
of the illustrious Dr. Samuel Johnson, who settled 
the disputed question of the reality of matter by 
Stamping upon the ground. It is because of the 
acceptance by mankind of such superficial and in- 
adequate proofs as this that the reality of the 
spiritual is limited and all but denied. It is be- 
cause the Study of mind has been reStri6ted by 
predicating a physical and material basis for 
mental phenomena that the so-called mental 
sciences have been so barren of real results. Such 
sciences treat only of the human mind and its 
simulated activities. Knowledge derived from 

242 



JEAN EVAETS 

such Study is wholly relative, dealing only with 
phenomena and effe6ts, never with absolute 
Cause. True, the cataloguing of mental phenom- 
ena may be interesting, and the tabulating of 
ef£e6ts has led to much that is seemingly pra6tical 
to the human mind. But the question of real 
progress as indicated by the development of such 
knowledge is a debatable one, for the undoubted 
progress of the human race through the ages is 
not to be traced to the discovery and amplification 
of material modes. Its cause is much deeper 
seated, even in Mind itself, whose unfolding ideas 
are dimly reflected in the human consciousness. 

It is not too much to say that mankind are 
dupes of their own physical senses. Blind accept- 
ance of the so-called testimony of these senses, 
even when tempered by human reasoning, prev- 
ious training, and education, has led to the sort 
of existence which is called human life, wherein 
through a few short years belief and speculation 
are externalized in a medley of physical pains 
and pleasures, joys and sorrows, phenomena, 
effe6ts and relative knowledge, and then go out. 
It is vain for mankind to insist that such a life is 
normal and the plan of an omnibeneficent Creator, 
and that they are satisfied with such an existence. 
Their heart-yearnings, even in the midst of the 
greatest material pleasures, even where the en- 
vironment is all that wealth and human ingenuity 
can purchase or devise, give such Statements the 
lie. The average life history of mankind is one 

243 



THE DIARY OF 

of blasted hopes and futile Strivings for things 
that cannot satisfy. 

Physical science explains nothing in the causal 
sense. Therefore, as an ontological fa6t, it may 
be said that matter does not exiSt. Nor is there 
such a thing as a material fa6t, for fa6ts are men- 
tal and exi§t in Mind only. The human mind's 
knowledge of itself and its environment is based 
upon the testimony which it believes it receives 
from the five physical senses. Owing to its essen- 
tially counterfeit nature, its firSt tendency is to 
ascribe reality to that which is unreal. This it 
must do, in the supposed absence of Truth. It is 
quite true that the eye cannot tell how nor why it 
sees material obje6ts; the ear cannot say how it 
hears ; nor can the hands inform the human mind 
how it is that they seem to be able to awaken 
within it a cognition of obje6ts without. Nor can 
these senses say why it is that they render such 
erroneous reports, reports so far from even rela- 
tive truth that, could we not by reason and under- 
Standing correct our sense-impressions, we would 
be obliged to discredit them entirely. Neither 
can these senses tell why they are unable to teStify 
of the existence of God, of Spirit, of Mind. But 
the Stupendous fa6t remains that were mankind 
left to the testimony of the physical senses alone 
they never could know Him at all, for not only do 
these senses not teStify of Him, but they abso- 
lutely deny His existence and the existence of the 
spiritual Universe. Yet the sum total of human 

244 



JEAN EVARTS 

knowledge is based upon faith in testimony which 
denies existence to the Creator! 

As we sit here and look out upon the landscape 
that stretches across our field of vision, so rich in 
color, so diverse in form and expression, the 
thought that all that we see is wholly within our- 
selves comes to us as a rude shock. Surely the 
hill that glistens yonder in the morning sun is a 
very real hill, solid and earthy, and the trees that 
crown it with beauty are genuine matter-sub- 
&tance! The sense of sight tells me that the "I" 
sees the hill without and is aware of its external 
and separate existence. And yet I mui§t confess 
that the question, "What is this 'I,' and what is 
yonder 'hill,' and how does the 'P become aware 
of the hill 's independent existence ? ' ' awakens no 
response within the chambers of my mentality. 

In looking at the hill I become aware of a sense 
of its actuality. Cognition takes the form of con- 
sciousness, for I become conscious of those obje6ts 
at which I look, provided there is sufficient light 
to make them visible. Physical sight, therefore, 
is wholly dependent upon light. In the absence of 
light I mu&t acquire a consciousness of external 
obje6ts through the medium of one or more of the 
other physical senses. "Light," to quote Pro- 
fessor C. S. Minot, of Harvard, in the Encyclo- 
pedia Americana, "is a series of undulations, 
but we do not perceive the undulations as such, 
but as red, yellow, and green. Objectively, red, 
yellow, and green do not exi§t. Similarly with 
the vibrations of the air, certain of which cause 

245 



THE DIARY OF 

the sensation of sound, which is purely subje6tive. 
But the sound gives us information concerning 
our surroundings, although in nature external to 
us there is no sound at all. Similarly all our 
other senses report to us circumstances and con- 
ditions, but always the report is unlike the ex- 
ternal reality. Our sensations are symbols merely, 
not images. " 

Again we come back to the apparent fa6t that 
physical sense-testimony is due to undulations, or 
vibrations, and that our awareness of the exist- 
ence of a material object is a State of conscious- 
ness. Consciousness is a mental condition. Can 
we say that it is due to vibrations, or even Stimu- 
lated by them? Vibrations or undulations, 
whether of the air or of the suppositional ether, 
do not enter the mental chambers of mortals, for 
between the realms of the mental and the material 
there is a great gulf fixed. Yet in reducing the 
process of cognition down to dependency upon 
vibrations, our physical scientists have carried it 
almoSt to the portal of mind, for vibrations, even 
of air particles or gases, are much less material 
than other forms of supposed material a6tivity, 
and to regard as causal undulations in the sup- 
positional realm of the ether, upon which scien- 
tists acknowledge that the phenomenon of light 
depends, or to which it is due, all but bridges 
the gulf. 

It is much more difficult to support the theory 
of matter-substance than of Mind as subStance. 
PhysiciSts could not even attempt an explanation 

246 



JEAN EVARTS 

of material phenomena without predicating the 
existence of that marvelous medium known as the 
ether, in which all phenomena mu&t occur. But 
again, the properties which mu&t be ascribed to 
the ether in order to account for material phe- 
nomena make it far more mental than material, 
even though it were possible to reconcile our 
thought to its being much more rigid than Steel, 
while at the same time some six hundred billion 
times lighter than air. At moM, the ether is a 
theory, necessary to the explanation on a material 
basis of the phenomena of force. 

We have said that the formerly accepted 
"atomic theory " of matter is now rapidly being 
superseded by the "electron theory," matter 
being regarded as built up of ele6trons, these 
being "superimposed layers of positive and nega- 
tive ele6tricity. " But electricity is manifested as 
force, not as matter. It cannot be regarded as 
having any of the properties commonly attributed 
to matter, such as weight, extension, etc. Ma- 
terial obje<5ts are said to be "extended bodies." 
Now by what process of mental reasoning can 
extended bodies be built up out of non-extended 
units ? How can an aggregation of things that do 
not admit of extension be formed into an ex- 
tended obje6t? 

The trend of physical science today is toward 
a single indestru6tible force, or subStance, under- 
lying all force and infinitely varied in its expres- 
sion. But Jesus said this same thing centuries 
ago, and he proved it by what the human mind 

247 



THE DIARY OF 

ignorantly calls miracles. If the basis of matter 
is ele6tricity, and ele<5tricity is a phenomenon of 
the omnipresent ether, and the ether is far more 
mental than material, what muSt be the logical 
assumption, even from the Standpoint of physical 
science? Jesus called this underlying substance 
Spirit. Paul wrote, ' * God quickeneth all things. ' ' 
Why then predicate a material medium as the 
basis of energy? For if God exists at all, He 
muSt be infinite, and He can be infinite only by 
being Mind, not matter, nor a union of mind and 
matter. And infinite Mind muSt include all things 
and muSt express itself in an infinite variety of 
ways, this infinite expression all being included 
within Mind. Physicists tell us that much more 
takes place in the ether than is caught by the five 
physical senses. Psychologists say that the realm 
of mind is all but unexplored territory. Cannot 
the one who makes even a pretense to logical 
thinking see that the world is approaching the 
acceptance of a mental basis for all that exiSts? 
Did not Mrs. Eddy State a spiritual fa6t when she 
wrote, " There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor 
subStance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its 
infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all"? 
(Science and Health, page 468.) 

Mankind are educated to regard the human 
body as the seat of life. Yet physiologists tell us 
that this animal body, this pampered and petted 
thing of flesh and bones, which mortals fear and 
love, despise and yet cling to with a despairing 
sense of an awful power of both good and evil 

248 



JEAN EVARTS 

which it wields over them, is composed of 85 per 
cent water and 15 per cent various salts! And 
the brain, mighty engine of thought, the marvel- 
ous dynamo supplying the vital current that glows 
in intelligence, wisdom, love, and power, is but a 
compound of water and a few commonplace ma- 
terial elements! Are body and brain causes or 
ef£e<5ts? Can a chemical union of oxygen, hydro- 
gen, chlorine, carbon and phosphorus think? Or 
is the power to think which the brain is supposed 
to possess dependent upon ju§t the proper com- 
bination of these various elements, the key to 
which has not yet been discovered by man? What 
is it that touches inert matter with a magic wand 
and bestows upon it the ability to originate 
thought and a6tion? And if, as the discovery of 
the element radium indicates, the few primary 
elements to which all matter is supposed to be 
reducible are in reality but states of one single 
element, the one unit out of which all matter is 
formed; and if this single unit-sub§tance is the 
ele6lron T itself composed of electricity; and if 
electricity is but a manifestation of force or en- 
ergy; and energy is immaterial, intangible, in- 
visible, without extension, without weight, without 
density, without mass — what becomes of matter? 
Does it not reduce to mental activity, the activity 
of thought, energized thought-concepts and men- 
tal pi6tures, held within that sort of thought- 
a6tivity called the " human mind?" 

Professor O&twald has said, "The world re- 
gards energy as only something imagined, some- 

249 



THE DIARY OF 

thing abStra6t, whilst matter is an a6tual fa6t. I 
answer, it is the other way about ! Matter is only 
a thing imagined, which we have constructed for 
ourselves, very imperfe6tly, to represent the con- 
stant element in the changing series of phenom- 
ena. Now begin to understand that the a6tual, 
i. e., that which a6ts upon us, is only energy, we 
have to ascertain by teSts in what relation the two 
conceptions Stand, and the result is without a 
doubt that of energy alone can reality be predi- 
cated/ ' 

And what is the constant element in the chang- 
ing series of phenomena? Even as we have said, 
Spirit, for matter is the way Spirit, or Soul, or 
SubStance looks to the human mind — that is, it is 
the way real SubStance is interpreted in human 
thought. As far back as the third century Plotinus 
wrote to a friend, "External obje6ts present us 
only with appearances, concerning them, there- 
fore, we possess opinions rather than knowledge. 
Ideal reality exiSts behind appearances. The ob- 
je6t perceived is different from the mind perceiv- 
ing it, we therefore have only a pi6ture of it. 
Ideal truth is not so perceived. . .The wise man 
recognizes the idea of good within him. . .Seek not 
to realize beauty from without, but from within.' ' 

If matter is not real subStance the mind cannot 
become aware of its existence. We repeat what 
we deduced some days ago : the human mind does 
not see things, but only its thoughts, its own men- 
tal concepts, its own mental pi6tures of things as 
it supposes them to exiSt. Nor is this refuted by 

250 



JEAN EVAETS 

saying that the eye cannot see in the absence of 
light, in the absence of those undulations which 
are supposed to evoke the sensation of sight 
within the brain, and thence within consciousness. 
True, no human being may be able as yet to prove 
that real sight does not depend upon the material 
eye, nor can he as yet prove that life is independ- 
ent of the physical senses. But it is likewise true 
that no human being ever supposed that he could 
do so. Such a thing has not even been dreamed 
of as possible, so thoroughly has the mortal mind 
been enslaved to its own false beliefs. Looking 
Steadily at such a belief of limitation, holding 
firmly in thought the impossibility of such a thing, 
the mortal sees this belief externalized in a sense 
of the utter impossibility of the thing, and he 
yields to what to him is only too obvious. More, 
he becomes jealous of this belief, and bitterly re- 
sents any attempts to refute it. Were mankind 
advanced to a higher degree of spirituality they 
would restore lo§t sight even as Jesus did. 

Matter consists of mental pictures held within 
the human mind. But what, then, is this human 
mind? It is, even as we have said, an aggrega- 
tion of thoughts, a6tively engaged in forming into 
mental pi6tures. The human mind is a mass of 
thought, self-centered, writhing, twisting, ebbing, 
flowing thought, the a6tivity of which constitutes 
consciousness and forms the mental concepts 
which make up the so-called universe or environ- 
ment of the mind. These pictures are formed 
under the thought-influences of education, belief, 

251 



THE DIARY OF 

speculation, etc., and they Stand to this mind as 
interpretations of real things. The mental imag- 
ery of material forms represents Substance to 
this mind, although it is not Substance in any 
sense of the word. Other material concepts, of 
law, of love, of energy, etc., represent to this mind 
its interpretations of Principle, Love, and Spirit. 
Relative material truths Stand for Truth, and the 
mortal sense of life is this mind's interpretation 
of Life itself. Through this mass that constitutes 
the human mind thoughts are constantly passing, 
and the mind's personality is therefore ever 
shifting and changing. Some of these changes 
are made very rapidly; others require years to 
effect. But the entire course of its suppositional 
activity on this plane of existence seldom exceeds 
a century in time as reckoned by mankind, and the 
average is very much less. 

When we say that this mind believes or thinks, 
we mean that within this mass of thought there 
are the certain thoughts or beliefs to which we 
are referring. It is the thought itself which thinks 
— it is the thought itself which is active — it is the 
thought itself which seems to say, l ' I am, " or "I 
think," or " There is." Where do these thoughts 
come from that are ever flowing through any in- 
dividual human mind? From the mass of thought 
that we have, for the sake of convenience, called 
the l i communal mortal mind. ' ' And what is this ? 
It is the dire6t opposite, the antithesis, of infinite 
divine Mind. But if divine Mind is infinite, how 
can it have an opposite? And if it has one, the 

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JEAN EVARTS 

opposite muSt be included within divine Mind 
itself. If the opposite of infinite Mind is real, it 
is forever included within that Mind. 

We have said that fa6ts are mental things. 
Since Mind and Spirit are synonymous terms, 
fa6ts are spiritual and reSt upon Principle, the 
"that by which all else is," or Truth itself. In 
any individual case there can be but one State- 
ment of the fa6t, or truth, regarding it. With 
regard to the sum of 2 and 2, the fa6t is that 2+2 
=4, and that ends it, for this is based upon Prin- 
ciple* and therefore admits of no further State- 
ment or change. It can never be af£e<5ted or altered 
in any way. 

Every fa6t admits of an endless number and 
variety of suppositional opposites. With regard 
to the sum of 2 and 2, we may say that 2+2=7, 
or 25, or 50, ad infinitum, each such Statement 
being a suppositional opposite of the fa6t in the 
case, each being without Principle upon which to 
reSt, and each being wholly without power, except 
as we voluntarily concede power to it. Any one 
of these suppositional opposites may enter my 
mentality and seem to assert itself as a fa6t, but 
unless I believe it to be true it cannot affe6t me 
in any way. The moment I accept any one of 
these suppositional opposites as true, however, 
that moment it begins to influence me and every- 
thing with which I have to do. My whole outlook, 
my entire mental experience, every mental State 
or State of consciousness that I may have in the 
future will be colored by it as long as I retain it 

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THE DIARY OF 

as fa6t. Should I discover the truth, and recog- 
nize the erroneous nature of the belief that I have 
been holding, my whole mental outlook will 
undergo a corresponding change. Or, if I do not 
discover the truth, but change from one supposi- 
tional opposite to another, from one belief to an- 
other, my mental State muSt likewise experience a 
corresponding change, and there will follow a 
corresponding change in the externalization of 
this mental State, which will be manifested as a 
change in my environment or my body or in one 
or more of the obje6ts or affairs with which my 
thought is a6tive. And, since none of these sup- 
positional opposites reSts upon Principle, or 
Truth, I am forced to change my belief constantly, 
for none will meet all conditions or Stand all teSts. 

The mental realm embraces all fa6ts. The 
opposites of these faSts are not realities, but sup- 
positions. They may be classed as speculations, 
beliefs, theories, or hypotheses. They are often 
referred to as "claims" when they seem to assert 
themselves as Truth. Being without a basis of 
Truth, they change continually — by nature they 
are evanescent and fleeting, resembling thin miSts 
that seem to obscure for a while, but melt with the 
mounting sun. In other words, they are unreal. 

Much confusion has arisen with regard to the 
terms "real" and "unreal." But, as Spencer 
says, the teSt of reality is permanence, and what- 
ever passes away or disappears is unreal. The 
real endures forever. Therefore only the eternal 
is real. By this teSt matter, material man, the 

254 



JEAN EVARTS 

material universe, the whole material concept, is 
unreal. 

A few days ago we spoke of the Nebular 
Hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System, and 
of its failure to explain causation. If we mentally 
resolve the material universe back to its primitive 
Slate, we will pass from this solid, rigid earth, 
with its surrounding atmosphere, its mountains 
and Streams and its varied life, back to a vaSt 
volume of Star-duSt, or nebular miSt, supposed to 
be the gaseous State of matter-subStance. Having 
done this we have exhausted the Nebular Hypoth- 
esis — and have arrived nowhere ! For this nebula 
is supposed to hang in space, or drift, or move, 
all according to fixed laws. But the laws by which 
it exiSts and a6ts are mental things, and muSt 
exiSt, if at all, in a mentality, and in the mentality 
in which they originated. Laws are not matter- 
subStance ; they are not tangible nor visible. They 
become known to a mentality by their phenomena, 
or ef£e<5ts. Moreover, the Star-duSt, or gaseous 
vapor of which the nebula is composed, cannot 
become known until there is a mind to know it — 
and until there is such a mind it cannot be said to 
have existence at all. Mind muSt have existed 
before the nebula was formed ; and the formation 
of the nebula muSt have followed the framing of 
the laws by which it exiSts and a6ts. 

But to resolve the universe into Star-duSt or 
gases does not begin to explain its origin or com- 
position. If matter is "superimposed layers of 
positive and negative electricity, ' ? our nebula is 

255 



THE DIARY OF 

an ele<5trical phenomenon, moving and a6ting in 
accordance with laws, which themselves are men- 
tal things. Further, the universe is known to 
mankind only through the so-called physical 
senses, hence through undulations and vibrations, 
from which the human mind is supposed to make 
up the pictures that constitute its concept of a 
universe. Again we are forced to conclude that 
the universe as known to mortals is wholly men- 
tal and consiMs of material thought-interpreta- 
tions of the spiritual Universe which lies back 
of it. In other words, that the material universe 
is a misstatement of the spiritual Universe, and 
exists only in the false thought that constitutes 
the communal mortal mind, and which is refle6ted 
by individual mortal minds, called mankind. 

Spirit, and therefore SubStance, is eternal. 
Matter is its interpretation in suppositional 
thought. Hence the origin of the material "law 
of the conservation of matter." Simulating real 
SubStance, matter has been thought to be inde- 
Stru6tible. But the discovery of radio-a6tivity in 
our own day has put this theory to rout. The ele- 
ments, the fundamental constituents of matter, 
are shown to "run down." True, the process is 
a very slow one — but it is nevertheless a very sure 
one, and presages the ultimate destruction of the 
whole material concept. Even to materialists, 
matter is not the Stable thing it was once thought 
to be ; and to those who can look further and dis- 
cern the mental nature of the material concept, 
its ultimate destruction is inevitable. 

256 



JEAN EVARTS 

The greatest things with which we are con- 
cerned even on this plane of existence are wholly 
immaterial. Moreover, as a thing becomes less 
and less visibly material it increases in power. 
Heat, Steam, the expansion of gases, etc., afford 
examples of this truth. And finally, the greatest 
acknowledged power of all is the power of mind, 
absolutely invisible to the physical senses — nay, 
even denied by them. 

The power of love is incalculable, far greater 
than the suppositional power of hatred, far ex- 
ceeding the so-called power of lu§t. The power of 
truth is incomparable — the power of error is 
always measurable, limited, quantitative. And 
error is always subjedt to truth — is always chang- 
ing — always shifting — always passing into new 
forms — never permanent, and never real, but van- 
ishing from conscious experience when truth is 
applied to it. The mo£t terrible evils of our 
civilization, drunkenness, debauchery, enslaving 
habits, lu£t, murder, theft — what are these when 
Truth and Love are applied? What became of 
the slave traffic in our country when Truth and 
Love were asserted? It is natural that evil should 
flourish as long as it is held to be truth — that 
error should follow as long as 2+2 is supposed to 
be 7 — that men should suffer and die as long as 
matter is held to be sentient and to be capable of 
both pain and pleasure — that this sense of exist- 
ence should continue to be transient and fleeting 
as long as the human mind passes from one belief 
to another, without finding or accepting the truth. 

257 



THE DIAEY OF 

Finite mind is not equal to the task of saying 
what are the workings of the infinite Mind which 
is God, but we do know that infinite Good cannot 
create nor cause evil, nor can such Mind know evil 
as real. Nor can evil be known at all, for a thing 
is known only when it is known to be real, that is, 
eternal. All other knowing is but relative. It is 
not for us to say that infinite Mind holds various 
Statements, or that it ever looks upon supposi- 
tions. But we know enough to put into pra6tice 
the infinite fa6t that no creator can be less than 
good, and for that reason cannot create evil, and 
therefore that evil is known as such only to the 
sense of evil, which sense is the suppositional 
opposite of the spiritual sense of Good. Being 
transitory, such sense of evil is not real, and there 
is no need of asking where it exists, for such a 
question only assumes its reality. It does not 
exiSt in infinite Mind, and therefore has no exist- 
ence at all. The finite human mind may argue 
that it cannot understand such logic. But what 
can it understand? It may obje6t to accepting 
things on faith ; but it needs to be reminded that 
nearly everything in its experience is accepted 
absolutely on faith. Can the wisest savant tell 
how or why a blade of grass grows? Can the 
learned academician who refuses to take things 
on faith explain how the tree springs from the 
acorn? Or can he define Life and Love? Can he 
say what holds his material world in space ? Has 
he ever laid a hand upon the great cables that bind 
the Stars together? What can the human mind 

258 



JEAN EVARTS 

explain? What does it know, beyond its own 
little conceits and flimsy beliefs ? Is it competent 
to draw a dividing line between the mental and 
the material? Then why belittle Mind and assume 
to set limits to the Infinite ? Truth is known only 
to Truth — error only to error. What can the 
human mind know of reality until Knowledge, 
based upon absolute Truth, dispels its shadows? 

The human mind's seeming resistance to the 
spiritual import of the teachings of Jesus is but 
another phase of the confli6t between the spiritual 
and the carnal, which shall laSt until the latter has 
been overcome. The human mind is forced to 
change continually in order to simulate as nearly 
as possible true Being, although seeming to resist 
any change not due to its own incentive. Appar- 
ently it is willing to change only in conformity to 
its own interpretation of fa6ts. Yet it persist- 
ently follows any model held before it, so be it 
that it can believe in its a6tuality. It is for this 
reason that holding Truth constantly before it 
causes it to change to conform to it — and since 
the mortal is but error of Statement, or belief, a 
change to conform to Truth muSt mean the dis- 
appearance of the error, and therefore of the 
mortal. When the error that 2+2=7 changes to 
conform to the truth that 2+2=4, the error en- 
tirely disappears. 

The mortal mind, so-called, having no life or 
power of its own, is wholly inert as far as real 
activity is concerned. To this mental inertia is 
due much of the criticism directed againSt Chris- 

259 



THE DIARY OF 

tianity. Mental inertia, or mental laziness, causes 
resistance to any Stimulus to grasp metaphysical 
fa6ts. Great mental effort is generally required 
for the proofs of spiritual things to the human 
consciousness, even as similar effort is necessary 
in the demonstration of mathematical principles. 
Persistency and understanding alone can succeed 
in either case. 

Throughout the ages there has been nothing 
so potent to Stir the human mind into raging 
hatred as the Bible, for it is the carrier of the 
Word of Truth to mankind, and teaches the noth- 
ingness of the human concept. Utterly opposed 
by nature to things spiritual, the human mind 
muSt of necessity seem to resiSt all that is unlike 
itself. Its dense ignorance is a barrier to the 
entrance of real Knowledge. Believing in the 
reality of the material concept, it believes in the 
actuality of evil as a power. Ignorant of the fa<5t 
that whatever has a beginning muSt also have an 
end, it records in its materialistic account of the 
Creation the Statement that the Creator formed 
the universe out of chaos, nothingness, and made 
man out of the duSt of the ground. Weaving its 
materialistic theology into a form that it can 
accept, it makes death the gateway through which 
material man enters the realm of the spiritual and 
becomes immortal. Its labors have resulted in a 
web of fantaStic design, but flimsy in texture, con- 
taining few Strands that will hold when the teSt 
is applied. 

260 



JEAN EVARTS 

If the human mind should reason correctly 
even from its own premises, it would fall afoul of 
its processes and bring out a redudiio ad ab- 
surdum. For, as it is willing to admit, the exist- 
ence of things demands a creator, and the exist- 
ence of an infinite universe calls for an infinite 
creative power. In the words of Lord Kelvin, 
i i Scientific thought is compelled to accept the idea 
of Creative Power." But, from the premise of 
evil in the world, evil that is tremendous in power 
and extent, logic demands a creator who is both 
good and evil. Yet, as matter is superimposed 
layers of different kinds of ele6tricity, and elec- 
tricity ia a form of force, or energy, and energy 
is not material, and whatever is not material mu&t 
be mental or spiritual, it follows that matter as 
substance does not exiSt. Therefore, human logic 
demands a creator who is mind, and demands that 
this mind express itself in both good and evil. 
Hence the imperfections manifested by this uni- 
verse call for a creator who, though infinite, is 
imperfe6t. And since the creator expresses him- 
self in both good and evil, there can be no possi- 
bility of ever overcoming evil, for by the premise 
assumed it is ordained by infinite mind as a part 
of its manifestation. 

There is one way that mortals have sought to 
get out of this confusion of reasoning, and that is 
to consider that the universe is but an imperfe<5t 
representation or manifestation of a perfect 
creator, and that it is in a State of evolution, the 
ultimate goal being perfection, and the method of 

261 



THE DIARY OF 

reaching this goal being justified by the end, for 
"all's well that ends well." But a mind that is 
infinite could not by any possibility be imperfe6t, 
for imperfection implies limitation, and to be in- 
finite, a thing muSt necessarily be whole, sound, 
good, without flaw or element of decay. And in- 
finite Good could not possibly create anything 
that could ever be less than perfect, nor could 
infinite Good create anything that muSt pass 
through various Stages of imperfection before 
becoming complete, for Mind's method of creating 
is an instantaneous one — "God spoke, and it was 
done." In other words, God's creatures are His 
ideas, coexistent with Him and dwelling forever 
perfect in infinite Mind, and the "a6t of creation" 
is but the unfolding of these ideas. 

The human mind is forever falling into the pit 
of erroneous reasoning. For, if the creative mind 
is infinite, it mu&t include everything, even to in- 
cluding this imperfect manifestation, called the 
physical universe and mortal man. And thus in- 
cluding imperfection, the creative mind mu§t 
itself be imperfect. Critics of the "idealism" of 
true Christianity admit that Mind is the Creator, 
and that it expresses itself through ideas, but 
insiSt that these ideas are represented by matter. 
Relatively true, in a sense, for matter is the way 
Spirit looks to material thought — in other words, 
it is the way Spirit is materially interpreted as 
subStance in the human consciousness. But the 
mistake of the ages has been in regarding this 

262 



JEAN EVARTS 

interpretation as real, and matter as the abode of 
life and intelligence. 

Departing from these false beliefs, as the true 
import of Jesus 's teachings mu§t, it has been ex- 
posed to the criticism of not being " evangelical. ' : 
But the terms "evangelical" and "orthodox" 
have been sadly confused in the human mind, and 
man-made theology and human systems of religion 
have ca&t their heavy shadows upon the religion 
of the Ma&ter. His teachings aroused the human 
mind to such terrible fury that (Streams ran red 
with the blood of martyrs. But when his pure 
spiritual religion had been warped into a system 
of theology and humanized by the Emperor Con- 
Stantine, when it had been Stripped of its healing 
power and denuded of its essential spirituality, 
the human mind accepted it and wove it into its 
political systems and worldly schemes for the 
development of temporal power and material 
wealth. 

True religion is not founded upon traditions, 
but upon demonstrable Science. Science re§ts 
upon absolute knowledge, which in turn is founded 
upon Truth — God, the infinite Principle which 
Stands back of all things and is spiritually dis- 
cerned. The sad failure of mankind to reach God 
through human processes of reasoning shows the 
absolute impossibility of reaching a spiritual end 
through material beginnings. Finite sense never 
can reach God, for as it approaches infinite Truth 
it meets with problems which, in its ignorance of 
the data involved, in its utter misapprehension of 

263 



THE DIARY OF 

the Principle which alone can solve them, it can- 
not handle. Its concept of God has undergone a 
radical change since the beginning of recorded 
history, and as this has little by little been puri- 
fied of the material and human, real progress has 
been made. The human mind cannot grasp the 
awful significance of the word ' ' infinite, ' ' nor the 
tremendous implications which such an expres- 
sion as "infinite Mind" muSt carry. Such a mind 
muSt of very necessity be changeless, the same 
yesterday, today and forever. It cannot be moved 
by tears nor entreaties, it cannot be importuned 
nor wheedled, threatened nor coaxed into yield- 
ing to anything less than the infinite Principle by 
which it exists and a6ts. Can we even begin to 
picture to ourselves this Stupendous power which 
we call God? — this majeStic, infinitely ponderous 
Omnipotence which moves irresistibly, incessantly 
onward, conforming absolutely to unvarying 
Principle, never deviating one iota from eternal 
Law — this Omnipotence which by very necessity 
mu§i move in conformity with the Principle of 
Right — this all-pervading Spirit which mankind 
interpret to themselves as the "ether," as 
"force," as "energy," as "power" — this all- 
inclusive Intelligence, knowing all things, yet 
knowing only Good — this infinite Love which has 
created all things for its own pleasure, that 
through and by them it may be manifested and 
expressed. Mankind cannot possibly bend God 
to conform to human desires — the ignorance of 
the darkened human mind cannot inStru6t infinite 

264 



JEAN EVARTS 

Intelligence. The human mind will have to emu- 
late Mohammed by going to the mountain, for, 
since it cannot change God, who is immutably 
right, changeless, eternal, it will have to change 
itself if it would work up out of the mesmerism 
of false beliefs into the freedom of Truth. The 
ages have answered the question, "Can&t thou by 
searching find out God?" with an eternal NO — 
nor can He be gained by a leap, as Browning 
would have it. He is Spirit, and He mu§t be dis- 
cerned and worshipped spiritually; and this can 
be done only as the material is exchanged at 
every point for the spiritual, as the false material 
concept yields to the spiritual f a6t, and God, Man, 
and the Universe are seen to be wholly mental, 
spiritual, and perfe6t. Jesus taught this long 
ago, but his teachings were sadly materialized 
and misinterpreted by the human mind. He did 
not look down from Heaven and in pity for man- 
kind, whom the Father had created capable of 
sinning and falling, ask the privilege of making 
the necessary sacrifice to redeem them. The dis- 
torted pi6ture which Milton framed in such won- 
drously beautiful language ca£t a black shadow 
across the pathway of the human mind and but 
deepened the ignorance with which it was Strug- 
gling. The coming of Jesus had no such human 
and material basis. It was but the working of the 
eternal law of Love, that Love which cannot be 
excluded even from the densest human mentality. 
The spiritual sense dawned upon the conscious- 
ness of Jesus, and he saw, as no man had ever 

265 



THE DIARY OF 

seen before, the infinitude of God and the spirit- 
ual nature of all things. He grew into a con- 
sciousness of the Omnipotence, the Omnibenefi- 
cence, the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God, 
and as this knowledge increased, so did its mani- 
festations appear ever more and more marvelous, 
until through complete spiritualization of his 
thought Jesus rose above this plane of existence 
and was able to say, ' ' I have overcome the world. ' f 
What had he overcome? Something real? No, 
he had overcome the human sense of life and had 
shown it to be utterly unreal. He found mankind 
dismayed by the seeming tangles and perplexities 
of existence ; but instead of yielding to the appar- 
ently hopeless confusion of harmony and discord 
that seemed to be all about him, he turned to the 
Principle which he knew to be back of all this 
phenomenal existence, and bidding the testimony 
of the physical senses depart from him, together 
with the sense of evil which is born of them, he 
threw off the limitations of material sense and 
rose into a consciousness of the allness of Good. 
And he told mankind that they should do likewise ; 
but only through approaching their problem in 
the right way — not by leaning upon him and ex- 
peeing that he would do their work for them, but 
by obeying his commands — not by holding the 
thought that salvation from sin and disease is 
something to be experienced in a distant future 
heaven, but that it is the certain result of mental 
work, and that such work mu§i be individual and 
muSt be taken up right here and now, even in the 

266 



JEAN EVARTS 

very midSl of the fears and terrors with which 
this mortal life is filled. Jesus showed that in the 
degree that mankind approach God do they 
assume His power. This power being without 
limit, he proved that the only limitations a man 
has are those which he sets himself by not know- 
ing God, and Man as God's image and likeness, 
reflecting every characteristic and attribute of 
infinite Mind. He showed that the hell which 
mankind experience is only limitation, and that 
Heaven is harmony. The English translation of 
these words has admirably kept the spirit of his 
teachings, for the word heaven is often used syn- 
onymously with harmony, and the term hell is 
traceable direcStly to the old English verb: to be 
"helled" about, separated from, shut off from, or 
limited. The mythologic concept of heaven as a 
locality mu&t yield to the scientific concept of 
heaven as a State of mind, the attainment of 
which depends entirely upon the mental processes 
of mankind. It is not attained by rigid conform- 
ity to the hard, aggressive morality of Puritan or 
cell-bound ascetic, but by right thinking, which 
takes outward manifestation in right conduct. It 
is reached through prayer and faSting — affirma- 
tion of God's allness, and refraining from the 
material sense of things. Confucius long ago 
said, "Heaven means principle." Jesus showed 
that it meant a State of consciousness — mental 
activity — in absolute harmony with infinite Prin- 
ciple, the Father who is Love. 

267 



THE DIARY OF 

The mission of Jesus to mankind was to show 
them how to overcome sin and its consequences 
by overcoming the thoughts that produce them. 
Men have not failed through lack of thought, but 
from misdire6ted thought. They have failed be- 
cause their energies have been dire6ted toward 
holding thoughts that do not proceed from God, 
and that are, therefore, unreal and transitory, 
taking the form of speculation, belief and mere 
hypothesis. He formulated the great law of the 
externalization of thought, and showed that as a 
man thinketh, so is he. He reduced all action to 
the thought which it externalized, and judged 
ctfndu<5t wholly by the motive that induced it. 

For every thought that is held within the men- 
tality tends to become externalized in some form, 
and like always produces like. The seeds that are 
planted in the human mind invariably reproduce 
their own kind — as invariably as the corn which 
the farmer plants results in a reproduction of 
corn. As this tremendous fa6t dawns upon the 
human consciousness, mankind will begin to trace 
every condition of mind or environment back to 
the thoughts from which it springs. No farmer 
would deliberately sow weeds where he expe6ted 
a crop of wheat — no man would be considered sane 
who filled his fields with thistles in the expe6ta- 
tion of reaping a crop of grain. Yet the man who 
holds thoughts of a power opposed to God, who 
deliberately or ignorantly holds thoughts of sin, 
disease, disaster and discord, is mentally sowing 
a crop of noxious weeds, even while he is hoping 

268 



JEAN EVARTS 

and praying to reap grain. No man will sow 
thoughts of self-pity if he can be made to realize 
that he will reap a harvest of untoward condi- 
tions, for God cannot be pitied, nor can His chil- 
dren — and mortal man is but a false mental con- 
cept, wholly subject to the kind of thought that is 
directed to him, not to be pitied, but to be dis- 
solved through the solvent power of infinite Love, 
that the real Man that is behind the false concept 
may appear. Thought is not a mere undefined, 
vague abstraction, but is a vital force, the moSt 
subtle, irresi&tible force with which we have to do. 
No sane man would sow luSt-thoughts if he could 
look into the future and behold the crop of poison- 
ous weeds that he mu§t eventually reap in bitter- 
ness and woe; no right-minded man would delib- 
erately sow disease-thoughts if he could see them 
outlined later in hideous forms upon his own 
body ; no man would ever think of sowing thoughts 
of a power opposed to Grod if he could be made to 
realize that every bit of the discord, the sorrow, 
misery, failure, lack, and utter hopelessness of 
this life, is but the result of such sowing. As 
surely as the farmer reaps what he sows, ju§t so 
surely do mankind reap their own thoughts ; today 
is but the result of yesterday's thinking; tomor- 
row will reflect today ; time will always show what 
thoughts we have held, and there is no escape 
from it. The one who harbors thoughts of selfish- 
ness, envy, jealousy, or greed is pouring into his 
mentality a poison more subtle, more insidious in 
its workings, than the awful drug that trans- 

269 



THE DIARY OF 

formed the humane and cultured Dr. Jekyll into 
the fiendish Hyde. 

The teachings of Jesus have been formulated 
as an exa6t science, and as such they are available 
to all mankind. But they become applied science 
only as his commands are obeyed and life is lived 
as he directed it should be. The rules of right 
thinking, pure motives, unselfishness, and love 
for all mankind mu&t be accepted and demon- 
strated, even as we accept and demonstrate the 
principles of mathematics, if we would solve 
mathematical problems. Personal opinions and 
personal leadership do not count in this work. 
Great truths have been discovered only as erron- 
eous opinions have been laid aside — when the 
false belief that the earth was flat was discarded, 
Columbus discovered a new world. Christianity 
is discovered to be scientific, as scientific as math- 
ematics, and ju&t as available to the one who 
yields to its demands. We find no difficulty in 
yielding to those demands which result in the dis- 
covery of laws of chemistry, of astronomy, or 
numbers. Yet these are far less important than 
the science of right living — a science which in- 
cludes all these and vastly more. Life that is free 
from sin, disease and discord is possible to man- 
kind — not only possible, but is demanded by that 
Father whom Jesus revealed as infinite Love. 
Jesus did not teach that such a State of mind 
could be attained in a day, for the coming out of 
a confused and tangled mental State into spiritual 
consciousness is a transformation which needs 

270 



JEAN EVABTS 

time to effect. But the humblest beginnings re- 
sult in increased happiness and freedom, if an 
honest effort is made to obey the rules laid down, 
to purify thought and to have but the one God, 
Good. One does not have to wait until he can 
raise the dead before he can become helpful, for 
the leaSt bit of knowledge gained advances one a 
Step higher and increases one's power and free- 
dom at leaSt a degree. One does not have to wait 
until he has attained perfection before the true 
Science of Christianity becomes available, for, as 
in the science of mathematics, the leaSt particle of 
knowledge can be used at once. As in the Study 
of mathematics only the one who is Studious and 
consistently obedient to the demands of that 
science makes progress, so in the Science of 
Christianity, induStry and right application alone 
result in solving the life problem. Sin and sick- 
ness will yield juSt as rapidly as the human belief 
of their necessity and unavoidability yields. The 
complete readjustment of life habits that is re- 
quired may take time; but as faith grows into 
understanding, and patience suStains right mo- 
tives, the errors that seemed so tenacious will 
gradually go out from consciousness, and man- 
kind will begin to experience that freedom which 
is the rightful heritage of the Sons of God. 

The evils which beset mankind are sin, sick- 
ness and death. The churches endeavor to handle 
but one of these, leaving sickness and death to the 
care of physicians. It is admitted that the mind 
has some influence upon the body, but that disease 

271 



THE DIAEY OF 

can be successfully combated only by the use of 
material remedies. Yet no man dares draw the 
line that shall limit the powers of mind. Why is 
it that a man's face is an index of his chara6ter? 
How is it that we can so readily read what it is 
that looks out from his eyes, or lurks at the cor- 
ners of his mouth? What causes the hair to 
blanch or the blood to congeal? If it is fear, is it 
not a condition of mind? We need not multiply 
instances: every particle of the body and of the 
so-called material environment is the work of 
mind, and every particle of it is absolutely sub- 
ject to mind. What keeps the heart beating and 
the lungs performing their functions? What 
digests food, all unknown to us, and changes it 
into the current that is believed to sustain life? 
It is the human mind, simulating the divine activ- 
ity and counterfeiting the Life that is God. Jesus 
once asked his hearers if by taking thought they 
could make one hair either white or black, well 
knowing that they could not because of their own 
self-imposed limitations. But the mind does do 
this very thing, and even greater works, when 
once the sense of limitation has been lifted. The 
human mind sees its beliefs, and brings out the 
fruits of its own thinking. It sees disease 
thoughts, manifested as disease in the body, and 
again it sees these beliefs change into beliefs of 
health, with a corresponding change in the bodily 
condition — a belief of disease giving place to a 
better belief of health, with a corresponding im- 
provement in the testimony which the physical 

272 



JEAN EVARTS 

senses are supposed to furnish. Yet it is all men- 
tal, all the simulated activity of the human so- 
called mind, adiing and reacting to fit itself and 
its environment to one set of beliefs or another. 

If heaven is the place of bliss that orthodox 
theology teaches it is, why do mankind resist 
death tooth and nail, employing every means 
available for warding off its approach? If an 
omnipotent and omniscient Creator gave man- 
kind drugs to be used as medicine for the healing 
of disease, why is it that in His infinite wisdom 
He did not give remedies that would never fail? 
Or why did He establish death, or permit it to be 
established, and then give man drugs to ward it 
off? Is it conceivable that if God wanted to cure 
mankind He would give them remedies that could 
possibly fail of their purpose? Did God create 
the earth as medicine for mankind, after deciding 
that mankind should be sick? If the herbs that 
are growing all around us were created by God 
for medicine, He mu§t have expe6ted that man- 
kind would be sick — but if that is the case, why 
did He not create medicines that would eradicate 
sickness and death? It is often said that without 
pain we should not appreciate joy, and suffering 
makes us value health. But does God have to 
suffer that He may enjoy the eternal harmony in 
which He dwells? Can we even imagine the 
boundless bliss of immortality? Can we form any 
conception whatsoever of the joy of beings who 
are immortal and who manifest Good only, and 
who are controlled by infinite Love ? Mortal man 

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THE DIARY OF 

reflects a mixture of good and evil, and at times 
he believes himself happy. But when is he mo&t 
happy? Is it not when his reflection of Good ex- 
ceeds that of evil? And if this is so, would not 
the exclusive reflection of Good result in supreme 
happiness? It is freely admitted that happiness 
is direCtly proportionate to mankind's reflection 
of Good. What then would be the State of those 
who refle6ted Good only? Is it conceivable that 
God would appreciate harmony to a greater de- 
gree if He knew discord ? And if He really knew 
it, could He ever work out of it? 

Jesus did not pray to a lifeless principle to 
heal the sick, for, though he knew God to be Prin- 
ciple, the "that by which all is," he also knew 
Him to be infinite Intelligence and boundless 
Love. Further, he knew that healing did not de- 
pend upon getting God's ear and convincing Him 
of the justice of the petitioner's cause, but was a 
fun6tion of knowing the infinitude of Good and 
the consequent unreality and powerlessness of 
evil. As has been beautifully said, "Prayer is not 
overcoming God's reluCtance; it is laying hold of 
His highest willingness." Such prayer is the 
only God-ordained medicine ever given to man- 
hind, and it is absolutely certain in its eff edits. 

If the religion of Jesus could not be formu- 
lated as an exaCt science it would be powerless to 
heal and save mankind. He rented his teachings 
squarely upon the immanence of God. If there is 
a God at all, He is Spirit, Mind. If matter has 
real existence it mu§t be included in Mind, and 

274 



JEAN EVARTS 

therefore mu&t constitute a part of Mind 's infinite 
manifestation. In this case it would be eternal. 

But matter has been shown to be but a mental 
concept held within the mass of false thought 
whose a6tivity constitutes the human conscious- 
ness. This mind, the communal mortal mind, 
itself the counterfeit of divine Mind, is but its 
supposititious opposite, and has no real existence, 
no permanence. God as infinite Mind includes all 
real mental things, all fa<Sts. But He does not in- 
clude suppositions. Then do suppositions exiSt? 
No, for by Spencer's definition of reality they are 
unreal, and their existence is supposititious, a 
supposition merely. The opposite of real exist- 
ence is supposititious existence. Who holds the 
supposition of human existence? Does God? No, 
the supposition exists only as a supposition, apart 
from all reality; and it is this supposition, with 
all that it entails and includes as consequences 
and implications, that constitutes the human, ma- 
terial concept of existence, including the false 
concept of God, the universe and man. The per- 
fect Mind that is God holds only spiritual fa6ts, 
as manifested in real Knowledge, the knowledge 
of Truth only. The human concept of material 
existence has juSt as much reality as the supposi- 
tion that "I am what I am not" has — namely, 
none whatever. But as mortals are not wholly 
devoid of good, and as this concept of existence 
seems to be on such a huge scale, and as, more- 
over, God as Love, Life, Mind, Truth, has pene- 
trated this supposititious existence to such an 

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THE DIARY OF 

extent and is everywhere seen to an even greater 
degree than mortals are willing to admit, this 
supposititious existence seems to partake of the 
nature of reality. But its true nature becomes at 
once apparent when we extra6t from it those 
things that are really the basis of thought and 
endeavor, and that constitute the things that even 
mortals admit to be alone worth while, for delve 
and search as we may, we at la§t come face to face 
with the great spiritual fa6i that only the Good is 
worth while, and it alone is permanent and true. 

Jesus healed the sick instantaneously because 
he was above material consciousness. He traced 
evil dire6tly to its origin, the human mind, when 
he said, "For out of the heart proceed evil 
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, 
false witness, blasphemies: these are the things 
which defile a man. ' ' In other words, evil is not 
due to malign influences from without, to chance, 
to germs, to the things we eat or to the forces of 
Nature, but to one's own thoughts. The mater- 
ialist admits that the physical senses constitute 
the only source of evil. But physical sense-te&ti- 
mony reduces to thought. Hence evil reduces to 
the thought of evil — nothing more. Sin is but 
evil thought ; and that may take a form so subtle 
as to deceive mortals into accepting it as Good. 
Fear is the belief in evil, and as such is lack of 
faith in God — the chief of sins. To fear is to have 
other Gods than the one God, and is an infra6tion 
of the firSt commandment. Paul said, "Whatever 
is not of faith is sin." Fear comes only through 

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JEAN EVAETS 

the material senses, and these fear because they 
can not know God. Mankind's progress has been 
proportionate to their freedom from the limita- 
tions of fear, ignorance and false belief. Such 
freedom has been the invariable accompaniment 
of the changing concept of God, from the anthro- 
pomorphism and pantheism of the savage, from 
the malign powers of Nature and the evil spirits 
that peopled the darkened imagination of prim- 
eval man, down to the concept which Jesus held 
of God as Love. 

The healing work of Truth was not a tempor- 
ary necessity, it was not the manifestation of a 
changing impulse of divine Love, it was not for a 
certain period only and employed to awe a few 
simple peasant folk into a belief in the Omnipo- 
tence of God. Such false ideas have caused count- 
less thousands to drift into agnosticism and infi- 
delity, without hope or expectation of light. The 
ChriSt-healing, dormant for sixteen hundred 
years, has been rediscovered and given to the 
world as an exa<5t Science, as infallible in its oper- 
ation and results as the science of mathematics. 
It has been Stated as a Science whose fundamental 
principles are so simple, so easy of comprehen- 
sion, that they may be proved by every one who 
is willing to give the effort and consecration that 
are requisite to the successful accomplishment of 
any important task. The world need no longer 
lament with Tennyson: "We have but faith, we 
cannot know, for knowledge is of things we see, ' ' 
for the knowledge which is based upon the things 

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THE DIARY OF 

we think we see is but relative human knowledge, 
speculation and hypothesis, based upon the men- 
tal pictures which we hold within our own men- 
talities, and is unworthy of even serious thought. 
The faith that pretends to believe that it can pray 
men's souls out of purgatory is but a flimsy coun- 
terfeit of that faith in the Omnipotence of God 
that understands the mission of Jesus, and knows 
that his teachings have been formulated into a 
demonstrable Science that will enable its posses- 
sor to heal the sick and raise the dead in this life, 
even as the Master and his early followers did. 
' i He that believeth on me, ' 9 said the Master, ' l the 
works that I do shall he do also — ." In the He- 
brew tongue the word "belief" means "under- 
Standing. " It is not mere faith in the atonement 
of Jesus, but a demonstrable understanding of 
infinite Principle, God, that enables mankind to 
work out their salvation. But one's faith muSt 
be in Good, not evil, for only "according to your 
faith" shall you receive — in other words, you will 
receive good only in proportion to your willing- 
ness to make room for it, and to your mental 
capacity to spiritually receive and assimilate it. 
If you are Still talking evil in your daily conver- 
sation, if you are Still writing evil, fearing evil, 
anticipating evil, your abundant faith in evil, 
which such condu6t proves, will become mani- 
fested in sin, sickness and death. "And to him 
that ordereth his conversation aright will I show 
the salvation of God" — to him who voices no evil, 
whether in word or deed, there shall no evil befall. 

278 



JEAN EVARTS 

What we think, is for us our mo&t important 
consideration in this life. Whether we are con- 
scious of it or not, we are every moment accepting 
or rejecting some belief, whether of life in matter 
and power apart from God, or of the allness of 
infinite Mind; we are every in&tant aligning 
ourselves on the side of either good or evil. 
Watchfulness in guarding one's mentality againSt 
the entrance of false thought, therefore, becomes 
mankind's imperative duty, the duty of self-pres- 
ervation. " Watch ye and pray," warned the 
Master, "le§t ye enter into temptation." And 
what is it that leads into temptation but one's 
thoughts, which take outward expression in 
deeds ? 

"God spoke, and it was done." Thought al- 
ways precedes adlion. The human mind holds a 
thought, whether of good or evil, and this thought 
eventually takes form in condu6t, simulating the 
divine law of externalization of God's thought in 
the framing of worlds. The divine process of 
creating is mental — "God spoke" — "God said, 
let there be light" — and the human process of 
creating condu6t, environment, and character, 
patterns after the divine, in that what men think 
becomes externalized to them in conscious experi- 
ences, the experiences which make up what they 
call life. Whatsoever men think and do in secret 
is eventually proclaimed from the housetops — 
every thought that the human mind harbors is 
sooner or later made manifest on the body or in 
the environment — sooner or later every thought 

279 



THE DIARY OF 

that we think is either found out by those about 
us, or actually confessed by ourselves. The 
drunkard cannot hide his thoughts, the thief can- 
not check the proclamation that constantly issues 
from his face and bearing, the adulterer cannot 
control the lewd conversation that publishes to 
the world the kind of man he is — "the show of 
their countenance doth witness against them; and 
they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not." 
The law of mental sowing is as exa6t and unfail- 
ing as the law of reproduction of the seed which 
we sow in the soil. Every thought-seed will re- 
turn to us in a plant exa6tly like itself. Indulging 
cruel, jealous, envious thoughts toward our fellow 
men is the pouring of venom into their mentali- 
ties, a poison which will return to us with in- 
creased potency, bringing sickness, failure, and 
misery. Every unkind word that we voice against 
another is a thought-seed that we sow, and time 
only is needed to return to us its like in a four- 
fold crop of hideous weeds — the law is absolutely 
unfailing. 

The religion of Jesus, as spiritually inter- 
preted and formulated into the Science of Chris- 
tianity by Mrs. Eddy, muSt of necessity refute the 
inconsistencies of orthodox theology, especially 
the fallacious teaching that from the one Cause, 
Spirit, there has been evolved in some inexplic- 
able manner both the mental and the material, the 
spiritual and the carnal. Jesus did not teach that 
in order to experience eternal life one muSt die — 
nor can it be said that orthodox Christians really 

280 



JEAN EVARTS 

believe this, when they employ every possible 
means to avoid dying. Jesus knew that men 
would continue to suffer and die until they had 
overcome the sinful thinking that results in these 
things, and that when the false sense of life in 
matter, including its concomitants, sin, disease 
and death, had been exposed and resisted in the 
way he taught that these things muSt be, mankind 
would gain that freedom which is the rightful 
heritage of the children of God. It is only as men 
grasp the spiritual fa6t of the Allness of God that 
they begin to realize the nothingness, the unreal- 
ity, of matter and the material concept. Freedom 
from error and its consequences is not to be 
gained at a bound. As in teaching a child the 
science of mathematics we begin with the multi- 
plication table, even though we may look ahead to 
the day when that child shall solve problems in- 
volving the moSt abstruse mathematical princi- 
ples, so in teaching and pra6ticing the Science of 
Christianity, it is not expe6ted that the beginner, 
nor the one who has applied himself to the Study 
and pra6tice of its rules for a few years, will be 
able to raise the dead or attain unto that State of 
spiritual consciousness where one no longer needs 
food and shelter as these things are interpreted 
in the human consciousness. But to overcome 
errors of any sort without the use of material 
means, to heal the sick without employing drugs, 
to begin to love one's neighbor as one's self, to 
bar the doorway of mind againSt what we know to 
be wrong thoughts, is Starting at the numeration 

281 



THE DIAEY OF 

table of Scientific Christianity — and willingness 
to do this, and to lovingly and patiently take each 
Step and prove the Principle, will ultimately re- 
sult in the acquiring of ' ' that Mind which was in 
ChriSt Jesus," to which sin, sorrow, and death 
are unknown. To heal as Jesus did, without the 
use of drugs, is to recognize the empirical nature 
of the pra6tice of drugging, and to Start at the 
beginning of the demonstration of God as All-in- 
all; to live without food would mean that we had 
reached that Stage of our mental journey where 
we had proved that life is not in matter ; to raise 
the dead would be proof of our triumph over ' ' the 
laSt enemy that shall be destroyed," and would 
mark all but the final milestone, where we shall 
Stand at the threshold of spiritual consciousness, 
ready for the ascension out of material sense, the 
sense of matter as subStance, into the spiritual 
consciousness of Spirit as subStance and God as 
Life, eternal and harmonious. Step by Step will 
those who truSt God and who seek ' ' firSt the king- 
dom" find that He will guide them, even in the use 
of material things, while they are working out 
their salvation; and as they advance, through 
patient, loving effort to prove Him, will they see 
such temporary means fall away, giving place to 
higher spiritual modes and ways, until heaven, 
harmony, at laSt shall have been attained. Jesus 's 
confidence in the power of infinite Mind to over- 
come every discord was complete. His wonderful 
demonstrations showed that he fully understood 
all so-called " outer conditions" to be the mani- 

282 



JEAN EVARTS 

fe&tation of inner thoughts, and to be wholly sub- 
ject to thought. His ministry was a beautifully 
consistent example of unswerving faith in the 
ever-presence of divine Love, and its ability to 
meet humanity's needs. And he left the world the 
promise that, by following in the way he pointed 
out, the reproach of mankind should be removed 
forever. 

"Ca§t not away, therefore, your confidence, 
which hath great recompense of reward. " 

"And the Lord shall guide thee continually, 
and satisfy thy soul in drouth, and make fat thy 
bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, 
and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." 



283 



MAY 26TH 



MAY 26TH 




WAITED for him at the ledge 
this morning, and as the birds 
poured forth their songs of joy my 
full heart responded. The tem- 
pe&t that raged within my mind 
when I was brought here has 
passed away forever, and the angry waves of 
human emotion, of human desire and fear, have 
been calmed. Over all my thought, as with a feel- 
ing of indescribable exhilaration I awaited his 
coming, there was a sense of wonderful peace and 
great thankfulness. I knew that the pa§t was 
gone forever, and that I was Standing at the 
threshold of a new life experience. But I felt no 
anxiety to read the future. Like the pa&fc, it is in 
God's charge, and I have no wish to borrow from 
it. Out of a State of seeming hopelessness, of 
atheism, and blackest despair, I have been drawn, 
so gently, so lovingly, to my Father, and He has 
i i restored my soul, ' ' and revealed to my yearning 
thought a knowledge of Him that I had believed 
never could be mine. How wonderful, and yet how 
beautifully natural it has been! No miracle has 
been wrought — only a problem solved. And the 
solution has come because the error which had 
seemed to hold me, to bind me, as Jesus said that 
Satan had bound the affli6ted woman, has been dis- 
placed from my consciousness by the incoming 
Truth. God's methods surely are simple — like 
Truth itself, for it is only error that is complex 
and inexplicable. 

287 



THE DIARY OF 

Then I saw my friend coming along the path 
below me, ju£t as he did that bright morning when 
he came into my life, bringing the "glad tidings." 
Looking up, he saw me and waved his hand. Then, 
leaning far over the ledge, I picked a wild rose 
from a vine that was clinging to the sharp rocks 
beneath, and threw it down to him. 

"We have come back again to the very serious 
question of what is the mo£t important thing for 
you to do as a beginner in the task of working out 
your salvation according to the understanding 
you have now gained, ' ' he said, when he had taken 
his place beside me. 



We have seen how it is that one's thinking de- 
termines his ability to receive good. Therefore, 
the mo£t important thing for the beginner is to 
think God's thoughts, and so gain spiritual under- 
Standing and spiritual consciousness. Mrs. Eddy 
has said, "Suppose one accident happens to the 
eye, another to the ear, and so on, until every cor- 
poreal sense is quenched. What is man's remedy? 
To die, that he may regain these senses? Even 
then he mu§t gain spiritual understanding and 
spiritual sense in order to possess immortal con- 
sciousness. Earth's preparatory school muSt be 
improved to the utmost." (Science and Health, 
page 486.) 

The point for you, then, is to improve earth's 
preparatory school to the fullest extent. Let go 
your grasp of the material. Do not waSte any 

288 



JEAN EVARTS 

further time thinking of pai§t error, nor worry- 
about any possible present or future effe6ts from 
pa§t sin or wrong thinking. Remember, "For I 
will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and 
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no 
more." Certainly if He does not see them, you 
can afford to forget them. Do not rehearse error 
in thought or conversation, for this is a ghoulish 
action, dragging forth the dead to prolong its false 
sense of life. Say with God, "Behold, I make all 
things new." Thinking God's thoughts, you can 
say with Paul, i i Henceforth know we no man after 
the flesh;" for you have seen that the real man 
is spiritual, the image of infinite Mind; and the 
material, mortal man is a thing of false thought, 
a pseudo-consciousness of good and evil. Know- 
ing these fa<5ts, and thinking God's thoughts, you 
can "commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy 
thoughts shall be e&tablished. " What are God's 
thoughts? "Thoughts of peace, and not of evil, 
to give you an expected end" — the Kingdom of 
Harmony. 

The mo§t important command for us all is, 
' ' Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine 
heart, that the Lord, he is God in heaven above, 
and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." 
Mrs. Eddy has pointed out that the spiritual fa6t 
and the material belief of things are opposites, 
and that the fir&t idolatry was matter. We have 
seen how, by following out the implications con- 
tained in these great fa6ts, the material man and 
the material universe are but things of false 

289 



THE DIAEY OF 

thought, projected within a consciousness whose 
activity is the suppositional activity of unreal 
thought. Mrs. Eddy has not said that there are 
no mountains, no Streams, or clouds, or flowers, or 
men. But she has said that the human concepts 
of these things are not the realities of God, and 
are not permanent. 

Jesus knew that dominion is Man's birthright. 
But he also knew that the human sense of his fol- 
lowers was clouded with worries and fears. His 
firSt Step was to expose these errors, and then caSt 
them out by his limitless reflexion of Love. His 
Statement, in subStance, to his anxious disciples 
was : If you will Stop worrying about your mater- 
ial bodies, and will understand that Spirit is the 
only source of supply, you will then find your- 
selves in the right mental attitude to reflect the 
love of your heavenly Father. He said, ' ' The poor 
ye have always with you. ' ' This might well mean 
that they were clinging so tenaciously to thoughts 
of poverty and limitation that they could not see 
that in reality they were rich, crowned with the 
unnumbered blessings that the infinite Father is 
constantly pouring out upon his children. He 
Strove to make them understand that the body, 
including all environment, was to be transformed 
by a renewing of the mind. As the understanding 
unfolds that God is all, even the life of Man, this 
life will be manifested in a man who is constantly 
ascending in the scale of health, harmony, and im- 
mortality. When mortals know nothing but Good, 
they will know nothing materially. The final Stage 

290 



JEAN EVARTS 

will then have been reached, and the mortal will 
go out, will cease to be. When the mortal ceases 
to think materially, the mortal self will have been 
overcome. The human concept will then have 
disappeared, and the real Man, the Man that has 
always existed, will be seen. 

The law of God gives to Man, as God's reflec- 
tion, dominion over the entire Universe. Acci- 
dents, and all that "happens," the casual and the 
merely fortuitous, would be unknown if men were 
willing to acknowledge but one law, and that the 
law of God, in which there is no such thing as 
chance or coincidence, but only a mathematically 
exa<5t sequence of cause and effe6t. The tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere would have no effe6t upon 
the body, fevers could not ravish, and ele6tricity, 
physics, anatomy, astrology, hypnotism, and all 
the other imaginary limitations in the long li§t of 
human-sense beliefs, which claim to be laws and 
to govern man and the universe, would be annulled 
and rendered impotent, if men would Stop believ- 
ing in a power opposed to God. 

Our thought mu§t be spiritualized, and the 
spiritualization muSl continue, regardless of the 
human concept of time, until the material uni- 
verse becomes dematerialized. When Jesus 
' i ascended into heaven, ' ' his body was completely 
dematerialized by spiritualization of his thought. 
Real progress can never be made as long as 
matter is held to be substance. We mu&t not only 
believe that the universe and mortal man are 
things of thought, material thought-concepts, but 

291 



THE DIARY OF 

we mu§l a6i our knowledge of this fa6l. To admit 
that matter does not exiSt as a reality, and yet to 
proceed upon a daily course of existence which 
shows that matter is the one thing that we are 
Striving for, and upon which we think our very 
existence depends, is to prove very clearly that 
we have little or no understanding of the spiritual 
import of Jesus ? s words. Some of the ancient 
philosophers did as much as this. And many 
earneSt thinkers today have reached the con- 
clusion that matter is a mental phenomenon. But 
they yield to its mesmeric influence, they fear to 
put their knowledge to the teSt; and while they 
know that thought is supreme, and that to think 
rightly is to create, they fear to attempt to shape 
their lives accordingly. If we would make progress 
in working out our salvation, we will have to a6t 
our knowledge of the unreality of matter, making 
only those concessions which suffer certain things 
to be so for the present, which permit certain 
modes of conduct to continue temporarily, only 
because of our incomplete understanding, or be- 
cause by so doing we are progressing according 
to the dictates of Wisdom. 

To make progress, you will have to give up 
the idea of a material personality called by your 
name and known as "you." You will have to 
cease regarding yourself as an independent 
thinker, however much this may seem to be op- 
posed to current opinion. The only thinker is 
God; and His thoughts come to mankind. It is 
the a6tivity of this thought that constitutes the 

292 



JEAN EVARTS 

real consciousness that we call Man. Mrs. Eddy 
has given us the keynote to success: "Mental 
a6tivity which establishes systematic and persist- 
ent right thinking, never questioning, never doubt- 
ing, never losing time worrying about results, 
never delaying error's deStru<5tion by its tempor- 
ary indulgence." 

Working out one's salvation is an individual 
problem, and while one can receive help and en- 
couragement from others, the solution of the 
problem depends upon his own persistent efforts 
to rid his mentality of the false thought that is 
aSiive therein, and to replace it with God's 
thoughts. But we muSt keep always in mind that 
it is God, Truth, that is doing the work. Of our- 
selves we can do nothing. But Truth working in 
the human consciousness can do all things. We 
can see why it is that Mrs. Eddy insisted that the 
corner-Stone of all spiritual building is purity. 
And before we have made much progress we shall 
see that next to purity comes persistency. 

And it means work, tireless, loving, incessant 
work. The false concepts do not always dissolve 
easily; weariness and self -justification put in their 
pleas early ; and many a one who has made a fair 
Start has yielded to the argument of discourage- 
ment, and abandoned his work. But there can be 
no relief in this course, for no man's work will be 
done for him. The death of Jesus on the cross 
does not mean that we will be given a transport 
to unending bliss. The awful truth Still rings in 
our thought that every knee muSt bow to Him, and 

293 



THE DIARY OF 

every tongue confess His name, before that State 
of consciousness which we call Heaven shall be 
attained. i i Work out your own salvation with fear 
and trembling," not postponing the work until 
you get through with the fear and the trembling, 
' i for it is God which worketh in you, both to will 
and to do of His good pleasure." Half-hearted- 
ness will not bring forth the fruits you seek. Dis- 
honesty with God brings swift and sure retribu- 
tion. "All things are yours," and you muSt a<5t 
as possessing all power and good from your 
heavenly Father. You muSt go about your daily 
course knowing that all is Good, and preparing 
with great expectancy for its manifestation in 
your conscious experience. To be expe6tant of 
good is to be receptive, and to put one's self in 
the right attitude for the working of the law of 
externalization. The cares and riches of this life, 
its pleasures and material sensations, are the 
thorns which would choke the good seed. But all 
these depend absolutely upon the sense of matter 
for their existence. 

The arguments of lack of preparation, of lack 
of mental discipline, as imparted by college train- 
ing and educational processes, often seem to Stand 
in the way. But the education which the world 
offers does not solve the problem of life — it only 
deepens the myStery and drives mortals into 
agnoSticism. True education is spiritual — it is 
"the fear of the Lord," which, in turn, is the be- 
ginning of wisdom. Remember that Solomon, a 
very wise man, once said: "I applied mine heart 

294 



JEAN EVAETS 

to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, 
and the reason of things, and to know the wicked- 
ness of folly, even of foolishness and madness: 
Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made 
man upright ; but they have sought out many in- 
ventions. ' ' Many inventions, indeed ! The inven- 
tions of the human mind are almost unthinkable 
in their conceit, their extravagance, their vanity 
and utter worthlessness ! No wonder "the wis- 
dom of the world is foolishness with God!" 
Despite seeming failure, despite the seeming per- 
sistence of material conditions, be not weary in 
well doing, for you shall reap, as the Master said, 
if you faint not. No man, having put his hand to 
the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom, 
and he may be very sure he will not enter into it 
until he has made himself worthy. "And that 
servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared 
not himself, neither did according to his will, shall 
be beaten with many Stripes." Having received 
the Truth, having seen what it can do for man- 
kind, but refusing to accept it and to conform 
thought to it, can only result in a continuance of 
discord, sickness, sorrow, and death, until, beaten 
by the many "Stripes" of suffering, all turn at 
laSt to Him "who healeth all thy diseases." 

Mrs. Eddy has laid great Stress upon the im- 
portance of "Standing guard at the portal of 
thought." The secret of salvation might almoSt 
be compressed into that one Statement. For, since 
the mortal's life is his conscious existence, and 
consciousness is mental a6tivity, the a6tivity of 

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thought, whatever the mortal experiences will de- 
pend upon the quality of the thought he enter- 
tains. Thought is the activity of intelligence. 
True thought can proceed only from a6tual knowl- 
edge, or Truth. Therefore, speculation as to 
what is or is not, wondering what is going to 
happen tomorrow, fear for the future, dread and 
worry thoughts, do not proceed from a6tual 
knowing, and are not true thoughts. They have, 
therefore, only the power that mortals give them. 
They can be put out of consciousness, and the con- 
cepts which they have built up can be dissolved. 
This is the Christ method of salvation. If we 
speculate regarding the possibility of not having 
enough to meet tomorrow's needs, we are presum- 
ing on God's business, for it is His business to 
care for us, and it is our business to know that He 
will do so. To speculate regarding Him is sin, 
breaking the very fir£t and greatest of all the 
Commandments. We have no right to allow such 
speculative thought to enter consciousness; we 
have no right to harbor such thought, for by doing 
so we are prolonging the apparent existence of 
evil and witnessing to its power, thus bearing 
false witness. We have no right even to listen to 
such thought, for it is an insult to God, to infinite 
Intelligence. We can reason rightly only when 
our reasoning is based upon fa6t; therefore, un- 
less we reason from actual knowledge, our results 
will be chaotic. It is speculation and guesswork 
that results in the farce called human life. Would 
anyone attempt to add a column of figures on the 

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JEAN EVARTS 

basis that 2+2=7, and 5+4=either 6 or 8? Cer- 
tainly not, for the results of such work would be 
chaotic. It is such results that we get when we 
attempt to reason from false or speculative 
knowledge. Unless our premises are based upon 
fa<5t, our conclusions will be worthless, and if we 
accept such conclusions we will suffer for it. 

Hence the importance of Standing guard at the 
portal of thought, and admitting only thoughts of 
Good. For the thoughts that we admit will form 
mental images. These images are our concepts, 
and they tend to become externalized in conscious 
experience, called life. We can make life what we 
will : it is all a question of the thoughts we allow 
to enter consciousness and build there. For build 
they will, and we profit or suffer from their con- 
Stru6tive work. The only possible existence evil 
can have is the existence we are willing it should 
have within our mentalities. It has been said of 
Jesus that his true and conscious being never left 
Heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even 
while mortals believed it was here. He once 
spoke of himself as "the Son of Man who is in 
Heaven." Remarkable words, these, for they 
show that the Christ was unconscious of matter, 
sin, disease, and death. 

Matter owes its existence to the so-called phy- 
sical senses. Some Bible scholars believe that a 
careful Study of the fourth chapter of Matthew's 
Gospel reveals the fa6t that the devil which 
tempted the Master was the testimony of the 

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physical senses. To their arguments Jesus had 
but one reply : i ' Get thee behind me, Satan. ' ' 

As we have repeatedly said, the physical 
senses do not testify of anything. They do not 
testify of disease, nor do they testify of cures. 
When Truth enters the human consciousness and 
dissolves the false concepts of disease, these are 
replaced by better concepts of health. The mortal 
believes that his physical senses testify of re- 
Stored health, but the fa<5t is that he is simply 
viewing a better concept, better thoughts, within 
his own mentality. 

Man is spiritual, despite the apparent fa6t 
that he seems to his own thought to be attached to 
a material body, from which he is unable to get 
away, But Mrs. Eddy has shown us that mortal 
mind and body are one, the body being the sub- 
Stratum, or grosser portion of mortal mind. It is 
for this reason that the mortal man is not di£tin6t 
from the concept of body to the extent of complete 
separation, but always has it with him in con- 
sciousness. Yet, the so-called senses of this con- 
cept of body give the mind no information what- 
soever regarding an outside world of matter. In 
all cognition or sense-perception, the mind mu&t 
be directed to the obje6t that is supposedly being 
perceived. We do not hear the ticking of a clock 
that is close at hand, unless the thought be 
directed to it. If a weight is placed upon the 
hand, a mental State is supposed to be produced 
through the sense of touch. But let the thought 
be directed away from the weight to something 

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JEAN EVARTS 

else, and we lose consciousness of its presence. 
We may remain for hours in the presence of a 
loud noise without being conscious of it unless 
the thought is dire<5ted to it. These are all com- 
mon psychological fa6ts, and show that the so- 
called physical senses are never operative unless 
the mind is dire6ted to that which is supposed to 
be the cause of the sense-impression. Sensation 
and feeling do not depend upon external phenom- 
ena. Ages ago the philosopher Epi6tetus wrote : 
"It is the peculiar quality and character of an 
undisciplined man and a man of the world, to ex- 
pe6t no advantage and to apprehend no mischief 
from himself, but all from objects without him. 
Whereas the philosopher, quite the contrary, looks 
only inward, and apprehends no good or evil can 
happen to him but from himself alone." So 
forcibly did this tendency of mankind to impute 
feelings to external phenomena impress Ruskin, 
that he called it the Pathetic Fallacy. Conscious- 
ness is not to be Stated in terms of an outer world, 
but the supposed outer world muSt be interpreted 
by consciousness. There is no external power to 
cope with and overthrow. The mortal concept of 
Self is the only power any man, woman, or child 
ever has had, or ever will have to contend with, 
and this is not a real power. 

The senses seem to testify of the universe as 
formed of matter, and of man as developing from 
a beaSt-like primal ancestor, millions of years be- 
fore the dawn of history. Evolution, or the De- 
velopment Theory, contains much that is illum- 

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THE DIARY OF 

mating as regards the history of mortal thought, 
although poets and philosophers have fought in 
vain against acceptance of the animal origin of 
man. Science seems to afford indubitable evi- 
dence of such origin ; nor need we disagree with it 
wholly as regards the origin of mortal man. 

It is utterly illogical that infinite Mind could 
produce anything imperfe6t, or work through 
imperfect agencies, even though the end to be 
attained were perfection. The infinite creative 
Mind expresses itself in ideas, according to the 
law of mental action. The unfolding of these 
ideas is the Creation. The greatest of these ideas 
is Man, the image and likeness of Mind, a spiritual 
consciousness, the activity of which is the a6tivity 
of Mind's thoughts. Man was unfolded as an idea 
of Mind, not imperfect, not unfinished, not devel- 
oping slowly through chance or error, or through 
terrible throes of suffering. Man did not develop 
as the plaything of chance. He did not spring 
from slime or protoplasm, nor from a germ of 
sentient matter. He did not evolve through long 
series of disgusting animal forms and shapes 
hideous to behold. Man has been perfe6t from the 
beginning, and yet without beginning, for he is 
co-eternal with God, as His image and likeness. 
If God had an animal origin, if He developed from 
protoplasm into infinite Spirit, through animal 
forms, then Man has done so likewise. But this is 
not to be thought of. 

We have spoken frequently of the so-called 
law of suppositional opposites, and we have seen 

300 



JEAN EVARTS 

how every reality might be supposed to have a 
corresponding opposite unreality. We have also 
seen that everything, even matter itself, reSts 
upon a mental basis. 

If Man is something, the antipode of Man is 
nothing. And it is exaStly at this point that the 
animal, or mortal, man begins. Scientists have 
already traced him back to the primal ovum, or 
germ. But there they halt, and either submit to 
the lethargic influence of Spencer's limiting phil- 
osophy, or break forth into insincere raptures 
over the wisdom and goodness of a God who has 
planned the development of His offspring — the 
offspring of Spirit! — through a process that is 
repugnant even to the materialistic mortal sense. 
At this point, however, logic Steps in and finishes 
the work by reducing the primal germ to its origi- 
nal nothingness. The real Man is a spiritual con- 
sciousness. Its suppositional opposite, the mor- 
tal man, is a simulated consciousness. The devel- 
opment of the mortal consciousness has taken 
place through countless eons of time, as time is 
reckoned by mankind. Within the mortal con- 
sciousness there have been simulated all of the 
activities and functions, all of the attributes and 
qualities of the real Man. Beginning as nothing, 
the mortal man has developed through possibly 
all the Stages of the mortal concept of the animal 
kingdom, since it simulates the idea, Man, which 
includes all of Mind's ideas. As the true Man 
has been revealed and developed within infinite 
Mind, so the mortal man has been developed 

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within the communal mortal mind, always rising 
from the lowest toward the highest, for its devel- 
opment has been the antithesis of the unfolding 
of the real Man. At an unknown time, but eons 
ago, there filtered into this mortal mind the 
"something not ourselves that makes for right- 
eousness ;" and it never left, but has continued to 
build and add to itself. Whence did it come? 
From divine Mind. And what will it accomplish? 
The transformation of the mortal mind. As count- 
less ages have passed, more and more Truth has 
found its way into this suppositional error, called 
mortal mind; and because of it, mortal man has 
seemed to ascend ever higher and higher, until 
he Stands upon his comparatively lofty plane to- 
day. His present mental State is but a single 
Stage in his development. 

There is little question that the Development 
Theory is quite correct as applied to the mortal 
consciousness. That consciousness would be today 
where it was millions of years ago, but for the 
infiltration of Truth. And as Truth enters, it 
clears away some of the falsity within, to make 
room for the entrance of more Truth. All of 
mortal man's progress throughout the ages has 
been due to his so-called discoveries of Truth. In 
every case, it has been Truth that has lifted him 
a degree higher. The Development Theory, or 
the theory of Evolution, is a simulation within 
mortal thought of the unfolding of Mind's ideas, 
which constitutes the real Creation. As Mind's 
ideas are all subordinate to the greatest idea, 

302 



JEAN EVARTS 

Man, so in the simulated idea of the earth, there 
seems to have been a6tual design in providing for 
mortal man's needs in the storing of coal, oil, and 
other natural resources which the mortal is using 
today. The law of gravitation binds mortal man 
and his world together — holds him to his material 
concept of earth — in simulation of the law of Love 
that holds together the ideas of infinite Mind that 
constitute the spiritual Creation, including Man, 
and that binds Man to all Good. The simulated 
Creation, by the very law of opposites, had to 
begin at the loweSl, the point farthest removed 
from Truth. It began, therefore, at nothing — it 
was called up out of chaos, nothingness, and its 
man was formed out of the du£t of the ground. 
Its development has been upward, as Truth has 
entered the human consciousness and revealed the 
reality of things to an increasingly higher degree. 
Yet, though we have said that the mortal mind is 
constantly ascending, we do not mean that that 
sort of mind is improving, but that it is in reality 
dissolving, thus becoming a better transparency 
through which the real Man can be seen. Mortal 
mind does not improve; it gives way, dissolves, 
becomes ever more and more tenuous and trans- 
parent, until it finally passes away altogether. 
This is the only sort of evolution that it can ex- 
perience. And Evolution will continue, until the 
mortal consciousness has been evolved out of 
itself, until it has been emptied of all false 
thought and become filled with Truth. Then that 
consciousness will cease its simulated existence, 

303 



THE DIARY OF 

and the mortal will have been "swallowed up in 
immortality. ' ' 



"And now," he said, rising, "I think you are 
able to see something of 'the grandeur of your 
outlook, the sublimity of your hope, ' as Mrs. Eddy 
has phrased it. Truth is at work within your 
consciousness, and there will come the inevitable 
Stirring up of all that seems to be opposed to it. 
You will be tried and tempted. Then will come 
the demand for prayer and fasting, the affirma- 
tion of God's allness, and the turning from the 
material sense of things. But remember that a 
wrong thought is always the father of a wrong 
a6tion, and it can be made to vanish into nothing- 
ness if you will but put a right thought in its place. 
You can prove that Good will destroy evil ju£t as 
quickly and ju&t as surely as light destroys dark- 
ness. A world full of darkness cannot extinguish 
the flame of the tiniest candle. A world full of 
error cannot overcome the slightest Statement of 
Truth. At the time when error's arguments seem 
to be moSt insistent, you may be on the threshold 
of your desired demonstration of their nothing- 
ness. Then remember, 'Thus saith the Lord, Keep 
ye judgment, and do righteousness : for my salva- 
tion is near to come, and my righteousness to be 
revealed.' It is His righteousness, His right 
thoughts within your consciousness, that are to be 
revealed; and their externalization would be im- 
peded if you yielded to the arguing error or the 

304 



JEAN EVAKTS 

insidious suggestions of discouragement. The 
Psalmi&t tells us that he i waited patiently' for 
God, and that he was lifted out of an horrible pit 
and his feet set upon a rock. In the hour of trial 
cling to your understanding, and keep before you 
the memory of Job, who said, 'But He knoweth 
the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I 
shall come forth as gold." 



305 



MAY 27TH 




MAY 27TH 

OU have asked me," he began this 
morning, "if you could not look 
forward to a life devoted to the 
service of mankind, in bringing to 
them this message that has been 
unfolded to you, and in laboring 
to uplift them, and restore health and harmony 
through the application of the Chri&t Principle." 

Jfc Jg» «M« «Sfr «M» «SE» ■»■ 

W "7V* W w "7V" "TV* TV* 

The task of devoting your life to the applica- 
tion of Truth to the needs of humanity is not to be 
entered upon arbitrarily. It can only be grown 
into, as the understanding of God expands within 
the human consciousness; and every Step of the 
way mu&t be clearly proven. The harvest is white 
all about us, and the laborers are few, indeed, even 
as Jesus said in his time. But those who labor in 
this field mu§t be wise, and mu&t have reached 
their place by working up from small beginnings. 
Nearly every one who has felt the curative effects 
of this great Principle, and who gains as clear an 
understanding of Truth as you have, looks for- 
ward to giving his life to his fellow men. And 
yet, though your heart is filled with gratitude, and 
you are eager to express it, there is but one thing 
for you to do now — go, take up your former occu- 
pation where you left it, and then rise, through 
constant proofs of God's power and presence, up 
out of the "mortal-mind claim of business," and 
into "my Father's business," the infinite task of 
knowing Him and reflecting Him only. Wherever 

309 



THE DIARY OF 

you go, whatever your hands may find to do, your 
light can always shine, and your life can always 
attest the ever-presence of Good. Were it not for 
the ChriSt-refle6tion seen in his followers, many 
who have learned to love God would never have 
gained the true knowledge of Him which has made 
such love possible. Turned aside and rejected by 
the world's cruelty and indifference, it would not 
have been possible for them to believe that God, 
whom they had not seen, loved them, had they not 
beheld this love refle6ted by the brother whom 
they knew and could see here in this world. Every 
deed of goodness, however small, increases the 
good and lessens the evil in human experience. 
Kindness, love, obedience, and truSt in the infinite 
goodness of God are the little things over which 
we muSt firSt be faithful, before we shall be made 
rulers over many things. Those who have gained 
the true understanding of Jesus 's mission do not 
proselyte, but their lives witness to their faith, 
and their faith develops into understanding 
through actual proof. Their lamps are always 
trimmed and burning, and the light of their coun- 
tenance is seen afar off. 

Do not fear to go out into the world and seek 
work. There is much to be done, and you are 
needed. Moreover, the business world offers you 
a wonderful opportunity to Stand as a witness to 
God. And if you will keep constantly before you 
the fa6t that the so-called " outer world" is but 
the externalization within your consciousness of 
your own thought, you will not fear any inability 

310 



JEAN EVAETS 

to externalize the right kind of work and the re- 
sources you need. In reality, there is no such 
thing as ' ' out-of-work. ' ' God has an infinite work, 
and He works through His ideas, of which you 
are one. I know that men cry hard times, and 
there seems to be much discord and confusion in 
so-called business. Eight in the very presence of 
God's infinite business, mortals manifest a woeful 
sense of lack of work, and even of the necessities 
of existence. 

But we mu&t remember that the only source of 
evil is corporeal sense, the supposed testimony of 
the physical senses. The only legitimate law oper- 
ating in the case of the one seeking work is the 
law of supply. God is infinite supply — not in- 
tangible, not afar off, but right at hand — and you 
are called upon to witness to this fa<5t and to prove 
it. For this very reason you likewise seem to be 
called upon to witness to its direct antithesis, 
according to the so-called law of suppositional 
opposites. 

You are in reality God's idea of Himself, and 
it is this reality that you are striving to bring out 
in conscious experience. As you appeared in the 
line of Creation you were given your place and 
your work. That work is the reflection of infinite 
Mind, regardless of how it may become external- 
ized in your conscious experience. Your work is 
to know God, Good, and to know nothing else. You 
are to refle6t Him and His work at all times and 
in all places. As He is Mind, and is infinitely 
a6tive, you mu&t refle6t this mental activity. For 

311 



THE DIARY OF 

us who are working out our salvation, there is no 
possibility of ever being out of work. We never 
before realized that we had so much work, and 
such glorious opportunities for the right kind of 
activity. 

In the great task of working out our salvation 
we early need to be warned against outlining for 
the future. It is not for us to choose and fix our 
own lot. We cannot flee from the work that God 
has appointed us, in the vain hope of finding 
greater blessings in some other occupation. We 
mu§t wait to be guided, and while waiting, we mu£t 
do what our hands find to do. Only divine Wis- 
dom can choose for us that which will meet our 
needs for growth and progress. If you take up 
again the line of work you were following when 
you were brought here, you will be doing what 
your hands find to do, while waiting for that guid- 
ance which never fails, and which never comes too 
late. Your environment, whatever it may seem 
to be, will change to correspond to the renewing 
of vour mind. 

God has given to each of His children a proper 
sphere of usefulness, and we may be sure He is 
not God unless He has done this. It is our task 
to go forward with what we see we have, laying 
every desire upon the altar of Righteousness, and 
knowing that God is leading us. Mrs. Eddy has 
said, and proved, that when we work with true 
motives, God will open the way for us. She has 
told us that God has infinite resources wherewith 
to bless us, and that we already have these re- 

312 



JEAN EVABTS 

sources. If we know that we have them, and a6t 
our knowledge of this spiritual f a6t, the resources 
simply mu§i become externalized in our conscious 
experience, according to the great law of external- 
ization of thought, which we have been discussing 
these paSt few days. 

To illustrate further: If you merely read a 
Statement of a mathematical principle, without 
really understanding it, you have got nothing 
from the reading. The principle has not become 
yours, and you cannot apply it. But, if you have 
read it underStandingly, it does become yours, and 
you acquire the ability to use it and obtain desired 
results therefrom. If you merely repeat such 
Statements as, God is Good, God is infinite Mind, 
etc., but do not understand them, and do not a<5t 
as if you knew them to be true, they can do noth- 
ing for you, for your condu6t then shows that you 
lack faith in the power of Truth. This lack of 
faith is lack of understanding of Principle, and all 
efforts to solve life's problems on such a basis will 
be juSt as futile as attempts to solve mathematical 
problems on a basis of absolute diStruSt of and 
disbelief in the principles on which the science 
reSts. 

Truth constitutes God's resources, the re- 
sources wherewith He blesses mankind. The very 
fa<5t that the truths of Being are in our thought at 
all, that we can read them or hear them spoken, 
shows that they are within our mentalities. It 
remains for us, then, to grasp them and hold them 
within consciousness, and conform our lives to 

313 



THE DIARY OF 

them. Doing this, they will form into mental con- 
cepts and become externalized within conscious- 
ness as supply, work, business, environment, etc. 
It is thus that holding under standingly to the 
truth that God has given us abundant supplies of 
all needful things, will result in these being exter- 
nalized as the supply that meets our needs. It is 
simply the working of our much-discussed, invari- 
able law. 

And so in all our work. Mere repetition of 
truthful Statements will accomplish nothing. A 
baby can be taught to repeat Statements of fa<5t, 
and yet be utterly unable to profit from them. To 
say we are not sick when we do not really believe 
the Statement to be true, is vain repetition, and 
dishoneSty. We muSt know this Statement to be 
true, because God's children cannot be sick, and 
the children of mortals are the produ6ts of false 
thought. Conforming our daily living to this 
knowledge, and clinging tenaciously to Truth, 
despite the apparent testimony of the physical 
senses, we will find that evil will flee from us, and 
will disappear as a conscious experience, a mani- 
festation of that which is opposed to Good. All 
work, all business, is mental, and mental work 
muSt firSt be done before the externalization can 
take place. Truth muSt be sent out before us into 
consciousness to clear the way. It will then re- 
turn and take us unto itself, even as Jesus said he 
went before to prepare a place for us, and would 
return and take us unto himself, that where he 

314 



JEAN EVARTS 

was we might be also, even in perfect harmony, 
heaven. 

Again let us emphasize the great fa<5ts that 
there can be no " out-of-work, " no " out-of -place, ' ' 
and no "out-of-business." Such manifestations 
as these are but mortal thoughts externalized to 
consciousness, and as false concepts they can be 
dissolved by Truth and replaced by true concepts, 
which in turn will become externalized as abun- 
dant supply for every need. But in working out 
of such false beliefs, there muM be absolute hon- 
eSiy in thought and motive, and perfect conformity 
to Principle, as this has been revealed to us. 

If we are logical in our reasoning, hone&t with 
God and with ourselves, and free from bias and 
the prejudice of human opinion, we will take for 
our major premise the Statement of Truth that 
"God is infinite Mind," and from it deduce con- 
clusions somewhat as follows: 

God is infinite Mind. 

Even on the mortal plane, mind expresses 
itself in ideas, and all of a mind's ideas are 
required to fully express it. 

God, as Mind, expresses Himself in ideas. 
Being Himself infinite, an infinite number 
of ideas will be required to fully express 
Him. 

If even one of God's ideas were out of place, 
or discordant, or lacking in anything need- 
ful, God would not be properly or fully 
expressed. 

315 



THE DIARY OF 

Every idea of God mu£t have its proper supply 
and equipment, in order to perform its part 
in the work of expressing God as infinite 
Mind. 

If even a single idea of God's infinite number 
of ideas, regardless of its magnitude or 
relative importance, were not fully supplied 
with all that it needs, and did not have its 
rightful work and place and business, then 
there would be error in the expression of 
infinite Mind, and Mind would not be fully 
nor properly expressed. 

For Mind to be infinite, it mu&t necessarily be 
perfe6t, else it could not manifest its infini- 
tude. To be perfect in every respect means 
to be Good, free from error or any elements 
of de£tru6tion or decay. 

But if there is any error in the expression of 
infinite Mind, owing to failure on the part 
of that Mind to properly equip and supply 
its ideas which express it, that Mind mu£t 
itself be erroneous, and therefore cannot 
be Good. Ceasing to be Good, it likewise 
ceases to be infinite, for its infinitude is 
based upon its perfection. 

Since God is infinite Mind, He is the only 
Cause and Creator. It follows, therefore, 
that nothing can exi§t without His creative 
mandate. 

We, therefore, mu§t be the children of God, 
despite the apparent testimony of the phy- 

316 



JEAN EVARTS 

sical senses. Since God is Mind, we, as 
His children, mu&fc be His ideas. 

It logically follows* therefore, that we mu£t 
have all we need at all times to express 
God. We have our proper place, our busi- 
ness, and our supply. And as God is in- 
finite, and therefore infinite power, there 
can be nothing anywhere that can in any 
way or by any means deprive us of that 
which we need to express Him. We cannot 
be separated in any way from ever-present 
Good. 

Since God is Mind, His supply comes to us as 
His thoughts and ideas. These He is con- 
stantly sending into our mentalities. By 
holding them and knowing whence they 
come, they become externalized in conscious 
experience as the things we need to prop- 
erly express God. That is, as all that we 
need to perform our part in the infinite ex- 
pression of Mind. 

But if consciousness is already full of wrong 
thoughts and ideas, the thoughts and ideas 
which God sends us cannot find entrance 
until these are displaced. When this is 
done, the thoughts of infinite Mind will flow 
into consciousness, and ultimately become 
externalized there as abundance, peace, joy, 
freedom, dominion, and all good. 

This is the "secret" of Jesus. It is likewise 
the secret of Christian Science. It is seeking fir&t 
the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Righteous- 

317 



THE DIARY OF 

ness, right thinking based upon Truth. Barren- 
ness of experience is thus shown to be only 
rneagerness of receptivity, for all things are 
already ours, and we have only to avail ourselves 
of this great fa6t, and conform our ways of think- 
ing to the commands of Jesus, in order ultimately 
to empty the consciousness of all false thoughts 
and arguments of error, and all claims of any- 
thing unlike or opposed to God. We are in no 
way dependent upon man-made laws or man-made 
methods. God of very necessity mu§t have met 
already every one of our needs. It is for us to 
Stand and know it. 

Men do not achieve more because their faith 
does not permit them to attempt more. They 
limit themselves, and still worship at the shrine of 
the Roman God Terminus. They do not really 
lack faith, but their faith in evil is generally far 
greater than in Good. They will have to get their 
faith on the right side, tlie side with God, if they 
would improve their Status. Faith mu§t become 
understanding, and confidence mu§t develop re- 
ceptivity. We always receive as much of the 
Christ Principle as we are ready for. If, although 
we know something of infinite Truth, our faith is 
Still in evil, our problems will not be solved, nor 
our diseases healed. To continue speaking evil, 
to continue voicing and reiterating falsities, to 
maintain an attitude of anticipating evil, and gen- 
erally expecting it, rather than good, will result 
in such expectations being realized. Mrs. Eddy 
has said, "When we come to have more faith in 
318 



JEAN EVAETS 

the truth of being than we have in error, more 
faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living 
than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then 
no material suppositions can prevent us from 
healing the sick and destroying error. " (Science 
and Health, page 368.) And she has shown us 
how to attain this faith. 

Men muSt learn to be about their Father's 
business, the business of reflecting Him, rather 
than the business of gratifying material desires 
and personal ambitions. They mu&t learn that all 
the wealth there is that has real and permanent 
value is within. Such wealth is not swept away 
by panics, by accidents, fire, or flood, nor can it 
be Stolen from those possessing it. Such wealth 
constitutes a real investment, the moSt profitable 
investment that was ever offered to mankind, for 
it is an investment in Truth itself. All business 
is in Mind, and we shall have to learn to refle6t it. 
There is nothing that can keep a man tied hand 
and foot, helpless, fearing, poor, and sickly, but 
his own false, material thinking. The mesmeric 
thought that holds him is his own. While looking 
at it he can see nothing else. He is then as help- 
less and as limited as the deer, whose liberty may 
be restrained by enclosing it in a corral of but a 
single wire. The deer sees the- wire, and is as 
effectually imprisoned as if shut up within Stone 
walls. It might leap over the wire, or crawl be- 
neath it; but it yields to the sense of limitation 
which the single wire engenders, and remains a 
helpless prisoner. This illustrates the psycholog- 

319 



THE DIABY OF 

ical fa6t that the mind sees but one thought at a 
time, regardless of the thoughts that may be sup- 
posed to be held within the mentality. If it looks 
constantly at the thought of limitation, it fails to 
see the thoughts of abundance that are ever- 
present, and that may be held before the mental 
gaze as readily as their opposites. A tiny obje6t 
held close to the eye will blot out the beauty and 
glory of the entire world. So an insignificant and 
powerless thought of limitation, held close to the 
mental vision, will hide the infinite bounty of God 
from our impoverished minds. Poverty is a false 
sense of separation from God, infinite Good. 
Financial limitation is the externalization of a lie. 
And a lie is always of human origin. God's chil- 
dren are His ideas, and are embraced in His 
thought and held within Himself, infinite Mind. 
How, then, can there be any separation from 
Good? The separation is only in the false thought 
itself. 

If we seek the externalization of Good within 
consciousness, we mu§t fir£t know that Good is 
infinite, and that there is no reality whatever in 
that which is called evil. A knowledge of this 
great fa6t cannot but make us deeply grateful, 
and thus gratitude becomes one of the firSi requi- 
sites to success in overcoming the false sense of 
poverty, for it indicates our State of mind. Pov- 
erty is a part of the so-called testimony of the 
physical senses, and such testimony is only the 
various beliefs that obtain in the human mental- 
ity. God, infinite Mind, alone can give true teSti- 

320 



JEAN EVAETS 

mony regarding us. We know what that testimony 
is, for we know that He States us in terms of per- 
fection, as children of infinite Love, supplied with 
all that is needful. Men believe that business is 
a warfare, and such they make it. They consider 
it a necessary Strife for even the very means of 
sustaining existence. They say that only the 
fitteSt survive this terrible Struggle, and that the 
fitteSt are those who manifeSt the greateSt will- 
power, combined with business shrewdness, sagac- 
ity, and cunning. HoneSty and Strength of char- 
acter do not figure as assets in this warfare. The 
philosophy of the business world is the philosophy 
of greed, and to be successful, as recently Stated 
by an eminent financier, one muSt have more 
brains than heart. 

But, if God is Love, and if He has already 
given to all men all that they need, why should 
there be any Struggle, or why should there be any 
lack? Again, it is the result of mortal greed, self- 
ishness, fear, avarice, hatred, and meagerness of 
receptivity. Poverty is a blight upon our civiliza- 
tion. As indicators of progress, the workhouse 
and bureau of charity Stand on the same plane as 
the hospital. Even according to mortal ways of 
thinking, this earth is big enough and rich enough 
to supply, not only the necessities of life to every 
mortal attached to it, but even the luxuries. There 
is more than enough to go round, much more, for 
the earth symbolizes, in a way, God 's infinite sup- 
ply. The needless blight of poverty could be 
wiped out so easily, if men only cared, really 

321 



THE DIARY OF 

cared, to make the attempt in the right way. But, 
actuated by mortal thought, they 'accumulate, 
hoard, strive, and slay in the world's business, 
only to find at the end of it all that they have made 
terrible mistakes and have labored for that which 
is not meat — only to realize that they have paid 
an awful price for the dubious privilege of serving 
Mammon. 

Why not set about correcting these mistakes? 
Why not begin to set in a6tion those forces that 
will bring in an era of harmony and prosperity 
for all mankind, instead of vainly trying to be- 
lieve that such a State of bliss is attainable only 
after death? Love has supplied a sure way of 
meeting all of life's difficulties, and of blessing all 
mankind far beyond their mo§t extravagant 
dreams of happiness. Men mu§t, sooner or later, 
be awakened out of their mesmeric beliefs. Their 
petty worldly ambitions, their luSt and greed, 
their selfishness, and their fierce Strife for those 
things which, once obtained, do not satisfy, mu§t 
be abandoned and put out of consciousness, if the 
things that are really worth while are to appear. 
True love is never satisfied with earthly things. 
True wealth is spiritual consciousness, and can be 
obtained by everybody, but only through following 
the method which Jesus gave to the world so many 
centuries ago. 

When facing the lie of poverty we mu£fc "be 
not afraid. ' ' We mu§t pay no heed to arguments 
of self -limitation, for these are but limitation of 
belief in God's ability and willingness to help us. 

322 



JEAN EVAETS 

We muSt know that the lie of poverty originated 
in the human consciousness, in human thought, 
and that we can destroy its pernicious a6tivity by 
knowing the Truth and resisting it on that basis. 
Once destroyed in thought, a correspondingly 
changed manifestation will result. But the spirit- 
ual muSl firM be looked after. The material will 
then follow of itself, for the essentially counter- 
feit nature of mortal mind forces it to copy the 
pattern constantly held before it.. 

It is God's business to care for you, to feed, 
clothe, and shelter you. He does not have to be 
reminded of His duty. Do not interfere in His 
work, and do not allow any sense of Self and 
Self's assumed needs to get in the way. Be ex- 
pectant of Good, for God is that " which was, and 
which is to come. ' ' If He is that which is to come, 
why should we anticipate the coming of evil, His 
opposite? Mrs. Eddy, from a wisdom proven by 
experience, has Stated a rule for conduct which 
should be graven deep on the thought of every 
loyal seeker after God: "Be wholly absorbed in 
the work of gaining daily more understanding of 
God. Then personal ambition, envy, desire to be 
in this or that place, cannot use you. Personal 
ambition has no place in a Christian's thought or 
life. He is wholly occupied in the loving, humble 
purpose to do good, to be good, and to prove that 
good is all that can govern thought, a6tion, con- 
dition, or being." Keep your thought focused 
upon the continual coming of Good, on the beauties 
and wonders of God's infinite goodness that are 

323 



THE DIARY OF 

flowing incessantly into your mentality ; hold con- 
stantly before your mental gaze the reality of Man 
as God's greatest and grandest idea; then, as time 
glides on, you will find yourself becoming trans- 
formed into that on which your thought is fixed. 
In all his many difficulties, Moses was able to say, 
"But our eyes are upon Thee." And so "he en- 
dured as seeing Him who is invisible.' ' Take up 
your cross and go willingly, not with the morbid, 
material thought that mortals reflect to one an- 
other, but with your mind illumined by the Light 
of Truth. Jesus said of the Christ Principle, "Lo, 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." Love is with you all the way and in all 
ways. You are never dependent upon any sense 
of human aid. Your Father says, "My grace shall 
be sufficient for you." And so you will prove it 
to be. 



Thus am I to be launched upon life's high sea 
once more. But I have thought it all out tonight, 
and I know that my friend has advised me wisely. 
With joy and thanksgiving I have already begun 
my work, the task of proving God's omnipotence, 
and reflecting it to my fellow beings. It is of little 
moment what my hands may find to do, for I am 
sure that this dear friend who has been unfolding 
the message of Jesus to me during these pa&t few 
days, will walk with me, as guide and counsellor, 
until my rightful place has been externalized. And 

324 



JEAN EVARTS 



that place — I have tried so hard not to outline — 
and yet, if it could be — by his side. 

But such thoughts have no place here, for I 
know they are human, and he has told me so often 
that speculation is not based on Truth. And 
tonight, following in the way he has pointed out, 
I am Striving to lay every desire upon the altar of 
Righteousness, asking only that infinite Wisdom 
may guide me. 



325 



MAY 28TH 



MAY 28TH 




S I write these words tonight I am 
trying to collect my scattered 
thoughts and make myself believe 
that the pa&t few days have not 
been a dream, from which I shall 
awake to see myself Still in the 
hopeless condition in which he found me. Today 
came as a sudden climax to the whole wonderful 
experience ; and tonight there is such a confli<5t of 
emotions within me, such a mingling of happiness 
and fear, of glad surprise and, withal, chagrin 
that I should have been so weak, that my wits 
appear to be scattered beyond hope of recovery, 
and I know I am writing as disconne6tedly as I 
am thinking. 

From the fir§t day I have felt as if I had 
always known him. There was something in his 
expression, in his manner, and even in his voice, 
that seemed familiar. I felt as if there was a 
bond between us that reached far back to some 
experience that we had shared together in the for- 
gotten pa§t. Many times I had been on the point 
of asking him to tell me about himself ; but he was 
always so absorbed in his message, and in his 
thought of helping me, that there appeared no 
opportunity to gratify what I felt he would regard 
as idle curiosity. 

It came about so unexpectedly that my recol- 
lection of the details is much confused. After he 
had sat down beside me this morning, he remained 
quiet for a long time, looking out over the valley, 
while I waited for him to continue the message 

329 



THE DIARY OF 

that he has been unfolding. I wanted to tell him 
how much I had read in my new book the night 
before, and how wonderful it all seemed to me; 
but something held my words back, something un- 
defined, like a vague apprehension of unpleasant 
tidings. 

Then he spoke. He told me that his work for 
me was finished, that the message had been given, 
and that I was now able to do my own work in- 
dependently. He said that I had some under- 
standing of the great Principle of Being, and that 
I had seen some proof of its power to ca&t out 
error from the human consciousness. The book he 
had given me would be my guide henceforth, and 
my progress would depend upon my fidelity to its 
teachings. 

"You have all that you need to enable you to 
work out your salvation," he said, "and, as I told 
you some time ago, such work mu§t be individual. 
Jesus has shown us the way, but he has not done 
our work for us. Believing him to be the Son of 
God, faith in his goodness and power, and out- 
ward conformity to the letter of his teachings, will 
do no more for you than it has done for human- 
ity since he left the world. Faith without works 
is dead. It is work that proves the Principle and 
demonstrates a corre6t understanding of it. Real 
progress results from actually doing the works he 
did, casting out sin, healing the sick, and raising 
the dead. Ceremonial, ritualism, creeds, and 
human opinions delivered in flowery rhetoric from 
the pulpits of costly churches, will never heal the 
380 



JEAN EVARTS 

world's sickness, nor wipe away its tears. Men 
have preached and expounded for centuries, but 
their faith — understanding — has been dead. Chris- 
tian Science has come to rekindle the flame of 
understanding, that it may shine into the human 
mentality and light the way for the entrance of 
Truth." 

While he spoke, his eyes shone with the light 
of perf e<5t confidence in that which he was voicing. 
But when he had finished, and turned to look at 
me, the light seemed to fade, and I thought a 
shadow clouded the brightness of his face. 

Then he added in a low voice, "I have planned 
to go this afternoon. ' ' 

I know not why the thought of separation from 
him had never impressed itself upon me before. 
It seemed so natural that I should be with him, 
and I seemed to have known him so long, that I 
had insensibly grown to feel that he had always 
occupied a place in my life, that he was a part of 
it, and that it was his very presence in it that 
made my life complete. 

For a moment I was dazed. Then there swept 
over me a flood of emotions that drowned my sen- 
sibilities, and in an instant paralyzed all rational 
thought. An overwhelming realization of what he 
had done for me, of my dependence upon him, and, 
above all, of that growing affection — an affe6tion 
that I had hardly dared to own, that I had thought 
to check, and yet had secretly clung to as my 
heart's deare&t possession, and which now, Stimu- 
lated by fear of separation, had suddenly assumed 

331 



THE DIARY OF 

gigantic proportions — took complete possession 
of me, and found expression in a confusion of pro- 
tect and remonstrance that welled to my lips. I 
cannot recall now what I said to him in the des- 
peration of weakness. But I am sure I muSt have 
revealed much of my thought of him that I had 
tried so hard before to keep hidden — I muSt have 
told him of my utter loneliness, and of my feeling 
of dependence upon him as my only friend — I 
muSt have poured out my Stricken soul before him 
— until at laSt the tears mercifully came and 
Stopped my wild words. 

Then, through the Storm that raged within, I 
heard his voice, and he was speaking my name, 
' ' Jean." 

It was not the word itself, but the authority of 
some knowledge hidden from me and implied in 
it, that Stilled the tempeSt and brought again the 
calm. I looked up at him through my tears, 
vaguely wondering. 

Then he laid his hand gently on mine. "You 
are asking why I called you by your name/' he 
said, and his face was bright with that same won- 
derful smile of tenderness, as if he read my 
thought and felt compassion for such weakness. 

1 i Surely I Still have the right to call you Jean, ' ' 
he continued, "for I see in you the same impulsive 
girl who used to run away from school with me to 
gather flowers on the green hillsides of our New 
England home — the same quick, responsive girl, 
who never would let me be her champion, but 
whose friendship I treasured as one of my deareSt 

332 



JEAN EVAETS 

possessions in those di&tant, happy days, when we 
took no anxious thought for the morrow. ' ' 

Slowly the light dawned upon my clouded 
vision, and I began to see that vague something 
which had seemed to exiSt between us, leading 
back to the days of childhood. Then, suddenly, 
the truth came to me, and his name sprang to my 
lips — the name I had seen in my sifter's letters 
and upon the checks I had received from her. I 
turned and Stared at him in amazement, for the 
magnitude of the revelation was such that my 
mind, already sorely tried, could scarcely grasp it. 

But as in the fir&t days of our association here 
he had shown himself master of that mental con- 
dition which was hurrying me to the manifesta- 
tion of death, so now he brought order out of my 
confused thought, and revealed that wonderful 
naturalness of condu6t which is the reflection of 
God's a6tivity, the a6tivity of infinite Principle, 
whose motive is love to all mankind. 

"I am going to tell you ju§t enough about my- 
self," he added, after admitting his identity, "to 
explain why I came to you in your hour of need. 
To do so I mu£t go back in thought almost to the 
days when I carried your books to school, or felt 
a sense of deep resentment when you would not 
permit me to whip some boy who teased you. 
Many years have passed since then, and they have 
brought me a varied experience ; yet I can see now 
that the experience has all been such as to bend 
my thought in but one direction, and to finally 
prepare me, through trials, disappointments, and 

333 



THE DIARY OF 

suffering, for the reception of that Truth which 
has become the motif of my life. 

After leaving our home town, I entered an 
eastern University. In the matter of education I 
might be considered very fortunate, for I spent 
many years in college and received diplomas from 
several institutions of learning. As for my relig- 
ious education, I had allowed myself to become a 
member of an orthodox church when a mere boy. 
But my heart was never fully enliSted, and as I 
grew older I found that I could not conscientiously 
hold to orthodox views. What sympathy I had 
left for the creed to which my name was sub- 
scribed entirely evaporated into the highly critical 
and worldly intellectual atmosphere of the Uni- 
versity; and when I finally left the "sacred pre- 
cincts' ' of learning, I did so as an agno&tic, deeply 
versed in human philosophies, and much im- 
pressed with the purely literary value of the Bible. 

Then followed a business experience in which 
I willingly assumed my part in the tragedy of im- 
proving the Status of a human mind at the ex- 
pense of its fellows. I was filled with ambition to 
succeed, and was quite ready to accept the world's 
established code for acquiring both fame and 
wealth. 

the sadness of that experience ! The empti- 
ness of my labor for that which was not meat ! I 
awoke to see all about me the massing of material 
riches at the awful co£t of manhood, and the sale 
of honor for a few pieces of silver, a pitiful bar- 
gain! Everywhere I saw the sacrifice of friend- 

334 



JEAN EVARTS 

ships for gold to consume on human lu§ts ; every- 
where the mad strife for preferment in mortal 
thought, the vain race for "who shall be greatest " 
in the kingdom of the dying ! In every walk of life 
I found the worship of Mammon, the cheapening 
of real worth, and the toadying of the sycophants 
of show and glitter. The air was filled with ma- 
terial thinking, crystallizing into coarse living. 
On all sides I met the pitiable pretensions to 
human power of the self-made and the newly rich ; 
the inflated boastings of the bloated human mind ; 
the blackness of ignorance; the lamentable weak- 
ness of worldly learning ; and the tragedy of mor- 
tals eking out their few sad, fleeting years of sin, 
disease, misery and worthlessness, even while 
vainly boasting that they were alive ! No wonder 
Jesus wept when he saw what kind of soil the 
world offered for the truth he came to plant ! 

Often I thought to flee from it all, as Thoreau 
did, and with a few acres and a humble cottage, 
live apart from the world's confli6t and give the 
remaining years of my life to "plain living and 
high thinking." Many times I prayed that the 
great Being, which I felt mu&t be behind all this 
material phenomena, would show me what was 
worth while, and I would promise to follow the 
leading, even though to the human mind I should 
become the lowliest menial. 

Mrs. Eddy has said that desire is prayer, and 
that all true prayer is answered. All the human 
desires that ever Stirred my thought at la£t melted 
in the fire of trials and suffering into the one true 

33S 



THE DIARY OF 

desire to know God, and Him only. That was my 
firSt real prayer — and it was answered. As in 
your hour of need Truth came to you, so it found 
me, baffled, disappointed, discouraged, and hope- 
less. What it did for you, it likewise did for me. 
I arose restored, and from death I awoke to know 
that Life is infinite. 

Since then I have learned what is really worth 
while, and my life has been one of devotion to 
"my Father's business." Daily I have been about 
the business of acquiring a better understanding 
of Him, that I might become a channel through 
which that knowledge should be brought to my 
fellow men. With what understanding I had re- 
ceived from Studying the book which I have given 
you, I entered the field that Jesus so long ago 
pointed out as white all about us, and now I am 
working as a practitioner in the great city of San 
Francisco. 

But in all these years I never forgot you ; and 
when, a few weeks ago, I learned from your siSter 
that you were in need of help, I wrote her to send 
you at once to California. I had already arranged 
to spend a few days in these hills, and here I felt 
that you should be brought — here where the 
beauty and glory of the infinite Father is mani- 
fested so clearly in the brilliant sunlight, the soft 
winds, and the profusion of flowers and birds, the 
murmur of Streams, and the majeSty of the snow- 
capped mountains. Here you have found Him, 
and finding Him, have entered upon a knowledge 
of Life eternal. ' ' 

336 



JEAN EVAKTS 

Before he had finished I was pressing his hand 
to my lips and covering it with my fa§t-falling 
tears. 

"Forgive me," I faltered, "forgive the weak- 
ness and ingratitude which my selfish desires have 
expressed. Your work for me is finished — and 
you mu&t go. But — you — take — " 

Again I checked myself. Then, with a sudden 
wild impulse, I cried, "Leave me now! Leave me 
to work it all out alone ! Go, and may that Father, 
whom you reflect so clearly, crown your life and 
work with richest blessings ! ' ' 

I started to rise ; but he detained me. 

"Fir&t," he said, taking my hand, "I want to 
tell you of a problem, and ask you to help me solve 
it. You will learn in your new work never to re- 
fuse an appeal for help," he added, smiling, for 
he read my astonishment at the thought of asking 
me to help him. 

"I would not refuse to do anything that lay in 
my power," I replied. "But I have so little faith 
in my ability — " 

"You are not asked to have faith in your own 
ability," he interrupted. "Eemember, always, 
that the Master said of himself he could do noth- 
ing. It is the Truth, G-od, within the human con- 
sciousness that does the work. Your part is to 
know the Truth." 

"I do know, and I will remember," I replied, 
eagerly. "And I will try to help you. What is 
your problem?" 

' ' You, ' 9 he answered quickly. 

337 



THE DIARY OF 

I looked up into his face, but the smile was 
gone. 

"But — I clo not understand," I murmured, 
wonderingly, trying to read the answer in his eyes. 

And then, while my heart beat rapidly with an 
excitation of mingled joy and fear, he told me 
what I had never dared to hope could be more 
than a day-dream of my own fancy. It was the 
old, familiar story, but told in a new way; and it 
seemed to me the moSt beautiful expression of un- 
selfish love that was ever sent forth to meet the 
needs of a yearning heart. 

"To explain is to repeat an oft-told Story,' ' he 
said, ' ' and one that I had not thought to tell you, 
until I caught in your voice and words a few 
moments ago the answer to a perplexing question 
that has come into my mind so insistently during 
these few days. Jean, I have known you and fol- 
lowed you in thought from the time we were play- 
mates together until the day I again saw you, 
leaning over this ledge — that day when I hurried 
to lift you up and realize for you that death is not 
the maSter of Life. Even as a boy, there was 
constantly with me the desire to claim you some 
day; but it was to be only after I had amassed a 
fortune, and written my name large upon the 
scroll of success. How I laugh now at those 
youthful ambitions ! 

But there was one ambition that endured. Per- 
haps it is only human, like the others — but that 
constitutes my problem. Each of us has again 
come into the other's life. Shall we continue 

338 



JEAN EVARTS 

there? Is it right and beSt that our paths should 
join, and that we should walk through the re- 
mainder of this life together? 

I know that marriage is a serious problem, 
even though it is seldom taken up as such. And I 
fully agree with Mrs. Eddy, that unless it is a 
Step in the line of progress it should not be en- 
tered into. But it is an institution that cannot be 
removed from human experience now — and it is 
one that can be made an instrument of the great- 
est good. 

Jean, there has been with me since boyhood a 
sense of need, a need that you can meet, to fill out 
this experience called life, and to join with me in 
the great work of manifesting the infinite Father 
who is Love, and reflecting Him to our fellow men. 
Will you take up with me this problem : whether 
it is right and be&t for us, and for all within the 
radius of our thought, that our lives should unite, 
and that we should live and work together? Will 
you join me in laying all human desires upon the 
altar of Love, and ask that we may be led to see 
the way clearly? Mrs. Eddy has said, and proved, 
that ' working and praying with true motives, your 
Father will open the way. ' This is my problem ; 
will you share it with me ? ' ' 

The sun Stood high above us, and the valley 
was full of molten gold. The breath of violets and 
wild roses kissed my cheeks, and the love song of 
the meadow lark floated on the soft air. 

I clasped his hand in answer, for, though my 
heart was burSting, I could not speak. 

339 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

"I under&tand, ' - he said, softly. "And now I 
am going to leave you. Not to take the afternoon 
train, as I had planned, ' ' he added hastily, for he 
mu§t have seen the look of appeal in my eyes. "I 
shall postpone that. But this has been a day of 
trying experience for you, and I know it is be§t 
that you should be alone. ' ' 

Then he pressed my hand to his lips and 
left me. 



340 



EPILOGUE 




EPILOGUE 

HEN I closed this short diary, 
nearly five years ago, I had no 
thought of ever adding to its 
record of what seem to me the 
moSt wonderful days of my life. 
The history of Truth's appearing 
in my darkened consciousness has been to me, like 
the Scriptures themselves, too holy to be mingled 
with the records of a mortal existence, and I had 
intended always to keep it apart. The Story of 
the coming of the one who brought me the "glad 
tidings" was too beautiful and sacred to be pro- 
faned by any further details of human experience. 
But today the spring house-cleaning again 
brought this little record to light. With a feeling 
akin to reverence I took it from the shelf, to turn 
once more its pages and call again to memory 
those radiant days when, in the matchless glory of 
that distant springtime, in such a setting as only 
Nature herself can frame in these magic hills, 
there was unfolded to me a viSta of that which was 
to come. And as I read, I felt that there was a 
word of gratitude to be added before the little 
volume could be complete. 

Gratitude for Life, Truth, and Love ! My life 
has become a song of deep thanksgiving, a pean 
of praise to that dear Father who Stretched forth 
His hand and lifted me from the shadow of the 
grave ! 

As I write, sitting in the shade of a dense 
crimson rambler that seems almoSt humanly in- 
telligent in its efforts to completely hide our little 

343 



THE DIAKY OF 

bungalow, my small son is climbing upon my chair 
and begging me to read to him from what he 
thinks muSt be a Story book. A Story book, indeed, 
that he shall some day treasure as I do now! 

Gratitude! Father, the innocent chatter of 
this little fellow, who has wrapped himself about 
my heart, is like a symphony from Heaven's 
choir ! 

Gratitude ! Every bird that heralds the rising 
sun echoes my song of thanksgiving ! that men 
could know, not what God will do for man, but 
what He has already done for him ! How quickly 
the deserts would bloom, and how the hills would 
clap their hands, and the Stars sing together 
for joy! 

As I look up from my writing, the garden is 
aflame with color. The great trees that meet and 
twine their arms together far above our little 
home are gently swaying in the perfumed breeze 
that has crept down from the hill tops and is 
slowly drifting out to sea. Here and there I see 
it fill a white sail, or bend the maSt of some fishing 
smack that floats lazily on the glassy surface of 
the bay far below. 

In the midSt of this beauty and harmony, the 
thought comes to me, what if the Truth brought 
to me by that dear friend, who daily becomes 
nearer and dearer, should find entrance into every 
human consciousness? What if the whole world, 
inStead of leaning on erring, human opinions and 
speculation, should come into a knowledge of the 
Truth? What would be the result if all those who 

344 



JEAN EVARTS 

today are Struggling against sickness, vice, intem- 
perance, and misfortune, should turn underStand- 
ingly to God for help, instead of to senseless drugs 
and frail human methods? 

And yet we know that the day is coming when 
" every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess 
my name." God's work is done, and every man 
muSt sooner or later lay aside selfishness, vanity, 
pride, and all human ambitions and schemes, muSt 
put off the sense of materiality, and Stand revealed 
as the image and likeness of Spirit, the infinite 
Mind that is All-in-all. 

When that day comes, there will be but one 
religion, the religion of Jesus, the Master. No 
mortal will assume to be his vicegerent, and no 
cult will claim a monopoly of the Truth; but all 
will be his followers, and his Father shall be 
theirs. Creed and dogma will have been forgotten, 
and pomp and dead ceremony will have passed 
into oblivion. The worship of saints and human 
personality will have followed the worship of 
wooden images and man-made idols into the outer 
darkness. 

In that day it will be understood that the mes- 
sage of Jesus was the good news that the Kingdom 
of Heaven is at hand, and that the attainment of 
this spiritual consciousness follows righteousness, 
based upon right thinking about God and Man. 
Our terrible and distorted concepts of a future 
life, of a material heaven and hell, will have faded 
into their native nothingness, together with the 
old mediaeval theology from which they were de- 

345 



THE DIARY OF 

rived. Paul defined the Kingdom as righteous- 
ness, peace, joy, holiness of life; and men shall 
know that wherever these are, there is the King- 
dom of Heaven — and wherever these are not, 
there the Kingdom is yet to be attained. 

At that time, men will not set apart one day 
out of seven for a perfunctory and material wor- 
ship of the Father, who feeds and cares for them 
every hour, nor will they publicly profess a faith 
that their daily living denies. Preachers will no 
longer hold out the hope of another world, instead 
of demonstrating the ever-presence of infinite 
Harmony ; nor will droning priests continue to in- 
sult Intelligence with their nasal intonations and 
their tawdry ceremonialism. Jesus will be taken at 
his word, instead of approximated; and human 
thought will not attempt to improve upon the pure 
religion which he taught and lived. Instead, men 
will "preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand; heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, caSt out 
devils, raise the dead." 

In that day, hatred and jealousy, and every 
evil thought and desire will have melted away, and 
every man will love God, Good, supremely, and 
his neighbor as himself. War, and the glory that 
is lavished upon those who make it their trade, 
will have yielded to peace, and the greater glory 
of mastering the carnal self. Poverty and social 
evils will have passed away forever, Strikes and 
industrial revolutions will have ceased, for God 
will be universally recognized as infinite Love, the 
giver of all good and of all that men need to re- 

346 



JEAN EVARTS 

fle6t Him. Men will dwell together in peace and 
abiding harmony, and business dissensions and 
strife, together with trusts and boycotts, and all 
the practices that are founded upon selfishness 
and lu£t, will have gone out forever from con- 
sciousness. Newspapers and magazines may con- 
tinue to be published, but they will no longer a6t 
as purveyors of revolting crimes and accidents, 
for in the atmosphere of right thinking that shall 
obtain in that day, such things could not exiSt. 
Men will cease trying to know evil, for they will 
see, as Grod does, that it is impossible to really 
know that which does not exiSt. 

At that time, too, there will be but one phy- 
sician, infinite Mind, for all will have learned that 
disease is but the externalization of disease- 
thought, and that, in the words of the French 
proverb, "It is the sick man who makes the dis- 
ease." It will be found that, despite popular be- 
liefs of the present day, Mind has supreme influ- 
ence over the body, even to the casting out of the 
mo£t dreaded and so-called incurable diseases, and 
that death itself will yield to the understanding 
of Life as infinite and eternal. Men will have put 
aside their beliefs in so-called laws of health, and 
will know only the law of God, the law of right- 
eousness, right thinking. Materia medica, which 
today so ignorantly treats effe<5ts, in the hope of 
thereby destroying the cause, will have yielded to 
the knowledge that the cause of all disease is men- 
tal, and that treating the effects of error can never 
destroy the error itself. Men will know that men- 

347 



THE DIARY OF 

tal phenomena are not due to nerve-excitation, 
and that, as one of the greatest natural scientists 
has said, "It is utterly impossible to conceive of 
pain except as a State of consciousness." The 
false science of materia medica, with its experi- 
mentation and speculation, its human theories and 
limiting opinions, and its vain search for Life 
within the body, will have given place to the true 
Science of Christianity, where, in the knowledge 
of God as infinite Good, there can be no fear of 
sin or disease. Men will have ceased laying laws 
upon one another ; and the command, ' ' Thou shalt 
not bear false witness, * } will no longer be broken. 
Innocent children will no more be condemned to 
drag out years of misery, blindness, and suffering 
from distorted bodies, because of false health laws 
laid upon them in their early years by ignorant 
physicians, such physicians as are now turned 
loose upon a credulous public by thousands every 
year from our schools of medicine. Nor will adults 
continue to submit to man-made laws of age and 
decrepitude, of waSting tissues and degenerating 
organs, for all will know that matter does not, and 
never did, possess Life, and that Man, in the 
image and likeness of God, is immortal. 

When that day comes, the tremendous effects 
of thought as the cause of all externalized phe- 
nomena will be recognized, and men will think 
only those thoughts that they wish to see mani- 
fested in their conscious experience. The awful 
effe6ts of mental suggestion, wilful or ignorant, 
the dire results of suggesting evil to other minds, 

348 



JEAN EVARTS 

whether it be sickness, sin, or failure, will be rec- 
ognized, and men will "Stand guard' ' at the door- 
way of their mentalities and permit entrance only 
to those thoughts that they are willing to see ex- 
ternalized in their lives. All will know that, "as 
a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," whether of 
false thought, resulting in the mortal who mani- 
fests sin, sickness, and death, or of real thought, 
resulting in the revealing of the true Man, bring- 
ing into conscious experience harmony and im- 
mortality. 

Men pray for the millennium, not knowing that 
the second coming of Christ is already an accom- 
plished fa6t. Indeed, the ChriSt Principle never 
left the world. It is here today, and is as avail- 
able as when Jesus applied it with such certainty, 
over nineteen hundred years ago. But, though it 
is here and available, men mu£t become pure in 
heart, in motive and thought, if they would see 
God. No man can successfully apply any prin- 
ciple until he is willing to empty his mind of 
prejudice and human opinion, and give himself 
wholly to the demands which that principle makes 
upon him. It is so with the infinite Principle of 
Being: it will transform men's lives as water 
transforms the desert into rich gardens. 

It is sometimes asked, Why does not God do 
this anyway, why does He not transform men's 
lives, regardless of their attitude? 

God's work is done. He has created all that is, 
and He saw that His Creation was good. He has 
given all good to mankind, and He can do no more 

349 



THE DIARY OF 

for us than He has already done. It is for us to 
see, to know, that He has done this. It is by know- 
ing that He has already bestowed all good upon us 
that we are enabled to put aside our false beliefs, 
and become receptive to what He has given us. 
The sunlight taps at the closed shutters : it is for 
us to open them. 

But the putting of false thoughts out of con- 
sciousness is the work of Truth, and so is God's 
work. Therefore, He does do for men ju§t what 
this question implies that He does not. The work 
of redemption is always the work of Truth, and 
that is God. He sees no evil. It is for men to 
know this, and to avail themselves of the Principle 
which will bring into their conscious experience 
all that they need to express and manifest Good. 

All men are seeking Good. Since the begin- 
ning of history they have diligently sought it. But 
they have sought it ignorantly, and have woefully 
misinterpreted it to themselves. The growth of 
Christianity is not attested by the increase in hos- 
pitals and charitable organizations, but by remov- 
ing the necessity for these things, and by men's 
increasing ability to overcome sin and discord by 
applying the Christ Principle to human needs. The 
search for that which will gratify the physical 
senses is not seeking Good. These senses cannot 
testify of Good, nor are they in any sense the 
measure of that which is real. As a recent scholar 
has said, " There is not the slightest speculative 
warrant for making our senses the measure of 
reality, and he who does so is ignorant or stupid." 

350 



JEAN EVAETS 

The mad rush for material wealth ; the cruel lu§t 
for gold which drives men to destroy human lives 
with opium and gin, even while those who traffic 
in human misery offer hypocritical prayers of 
thanksgiving in the established church that they 
are not as other men; the insane desire for ma- 
terial sensations and so-called bodily pleasures; 
the lu£t of the eyes and the sensuous cravings of 
the carnal mind, do not lead to God. They lead to 
pleasures that turn to ashes, and to empty hearts 
that are left desolate when the Strife is ended. 

But, though the human mind has wandered far 
astray, it can never get beyond the voice of in- 
finite Love, that bids it return and give up its false 
pleasures and false thinking — that bids it lay 
aside those things that can never satisfy, and 
enter into that knowledge of real Good which is 
Life eternal. Jesus long ago pointed out the only 
way. None other has been found since. Mrs. 
Eddy again indicated it to mankind, and herself 
walked in it to show us whither it leads and how 
we ourselves can become followers of the great 
Master, and, laying down all the falsities of ma- 
terial thought that would impede us, enter the 
gateway that opens into immortality. 

Gratitude! Father, I shall never cease to 
praise Thy name for revealing this Truth to me, 
for showing me its infinite power, and for making 
me a channel through which it is brought to those 
about me whose hearts are yearning for some- 
thing more than the vain offerings of the human 
mind! 

351 



THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS 

In the distance I see my husband approaching; 
and my little son, catching sight of him, rushes 
down the garden walk with shouts of joy to greet 
him. The golden haze of this midsummer after- 
noon hangs like a veil over the distant hills and 
the quiet bay, and through it there floats to my 
ears a medley of indi§tin6t sounds from the busy 
world of thought that surrounds our little home. 

Home ! That beautiful symbol of our home in 
infinite Love, wherein we dwell " under the 
shadow of the Almighty." And this is the solu- 
tion of our "problem" externalized. Here, in this 
garden of Nature, our paths joined and we began 
that comradeship which has seemed to crown all 
the manifold blessings that infinite Love has 
showered upon me. Here, with lives consecrated 
to the service of our fellow men, we are watching 
and working, bringing every thought into captiv- 
ity to Him, and Striving for that Mind which was 
in Christ Jesus. 

As I watch my dear ones coming up the path- 
way, the father always the same manifestation of 
sympathy and tenderness that turned my sorrow 
into .joy so long ago, and the child a symbol of 
innocence and purity, my heart seems bursting 
with the fulness of God's love, and there come to 
my lips the words of the Apostle, "Beloved, now 
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear 
what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall 
appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him 
as he is." 



352 



OCT 15 1912 



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